


the widening gyre

by VesperNexus



Category: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - John Le Carré
Genre: Angst, Antisemitism, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Backstory, Bloody, I'm so sorry, M/M, Nazis, Prostitution, Sadness, Smoking, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence, jens is broken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2018-11-12 19:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11168748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VesperNexus/pseuds/VesperNexus
Summary: He thought it was ironic, in a terribly sinister, hideous way. He had been there to witness the events that made Jens – that made Fiedler - into what he was today. He had been there with his futile attempts to pull a broken little boy from the darkness. He should have tried harder.In a way, he had known it would always come this. Giving that brilliant mind time to grow, learn, hate – of course the next time George saw that little boy he would have to shoot him down.And yet, he could not make himself pull the trigger.*In 1941, George Smiley met a little boy called Jens Fiedler.





	1. things fall apart

**Author's Note:**

> SO
> 
> I wanted to explore Fiedler's backstory and I didn't know how and FSHSFKSFKSHK  
> ENTER SMILEY
> 
> um so dark  
> like maybe unnecessarily dark but  
> dark!fiedler is life so it had to be convincing 
> 
> sorry
> 
> The title is from W.B. Yeats' poem: The Second Coming. It seemed fitting.

“George.”

Control’s voice was weary, almost reprimanding, as if he was speaking to a child. Smiley leant back in the leather armchair and drew the tumbler to his lips. The scotch tasted more bitter than it should have.

“You know it’s something we have to do George,” Control sighed. The fireplace cackled eerily in the background, lighting the study in a warm ambiance.

The silence stretched on, eating up the uncomfortable space between them.

“I know you’re conflicted about this. I understand.” Smiley was not sure he did. “But Fiedler’s very existence is our biggest threat right now. In fact, he’s been a threat since Mundt flagged him in ’59. He’s getting too close.”

Smiley closed his eyes for a moment, the scotch warm on his tongue. Control’s voice was too steady, too certain for their sinister, perverted plan. In the warmth of his study, far from Cambridge and the gossip and Control’s beady-eyed little wife, they were just two old men playing a game they had far outgrown. Or perhaps, the game had outgrown them.

“I know,” his voice sounded weak even to his own ears.

“Do you?” There was a challenge in those words that Smiley had anticipated. “Look, George-” he figured he was too old to be lectured like a naughty schoolboy. Control did not seem to care. “I know it must be difficult reconciling the Fiedler you knew all those years ago and the – the _monster_ he’s become now, but-”

“Control…”

“You know it’s true George.” And he did. That was the worst of it. “He’s not the boy you knew in Canada, not the one you met in Berlin.” He finally opened his eyes. To his disappointment, he was still in Control’s study. “They twisted him George-” The Zone. “They took whatever good you saw and they _twisted_ it into something cruel and vicious and incredibly bloody ruthless-”

“Isn’t that what we did? With Mundt?”

Control just laughed. Smiley twisted to face him, scotch forgotten. “We didn’t _make_ Mundt evil, George. Some men are born monsters.” Control’s glass was still full. “And some… well some become monsters because of what’s happened to them. Trauma. Fear. Hate. They can twist a man’s mind so nothing’s left, so they…” He paused, as if for dramatic effect. “So they _teeter_. So close to the edge of insanity. _In_ humanity.”

Smiley felt sick. “Imagine what that _trauma,_ that fear – hate – what that could do to a _child._ ” He did not have to imagine.

“I know, Control.”

“Except I don’t think you do George.” Smiley finished his glass quickly. He was suddenly thwarted by the urge to _leave_. “I think all that sentimentality Ann’s been pushing on you has finally paid off.” He did not protest. “Do you remember what Gullium’s man said? After Fiedler was done with him?”

Smiley did, all too well. Smiley was familiar with the madness that pervaded a man’s eye when he could no longer bear to look at his own reflection. He had seen it during the war. He saw it in Peter’s man when he came back from that room.

“Twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours, George – just _one day_ he had with him. And Mark – he had that look in his eye – you remember, surely?” He nodded, mutely. “The one we got after the war. But it was worse than that. It was like Fiedler had entered his mind – pervaded every thought. Mark never spoke about what happened, not even when I ordered him to.” He finally took a delicate sip from his drink, eyes cast far from Smiley. “He just got that look in his eyes. When I asked him – as a friend you know – I asked him about it and he looked at me and he said, _I can’t escape him._ ”

Smiley had heard this story many times. It still sent a shiver down his spine. Control continued. “He spoke like Fiedler was in the room with him. Was that way till they locked him up anyway.”

And so, there again – he spotted the moral a thousand yards before it reached the story. Mark had tried to kill himself – all the time whispering _Jens –_ until the Circus paid his pension and his wife had him committed. The man had been broken, fractured, hollowed out. Twenty-five years with the Circus – five in Russia, three in Ukraine. Fought in the war. The red in his ledger could paint a house. Twenty-five years, he was a legend. Twenty-four hours with Jens Fiedler and he was unrecognisable.

“I know Control,” and he did. Smiley put his empty glass on the table top and stood. “But you have the plan. You don’t need me.”

Control laughed. “I always need you George.” It was painfully true.

“I’m…” he hesitated, drawing his coat from the rack on the other side of the room. “compromised, Control. Emotionally, physically. I’m too old for this.”

Control remained seated, his glass only half-empty.

“Tell Leamas I wish him luck.”

The door closed behind him with a hollow thud. It should not have been so resounding.

*

He drove back to his little house, missing his little wife, in his little car. Everything seemed to incredibly insignificant in that moment. The rain pelted his windshield with fervour, so terribly he could scarce see through the glass.

He drove slowly, without purpose. There was nothing left for him in Cambridge. Material possessions. A memory or two of Ann, reading a book in their bed as he dressed for work, smiling. He felt shallow, depressed, as if the lifetime he had dedicated to the service meant nothing.

The same feeling of purposelessness had pervaded him in 1941. It was fuelled by anger then, the irrationality and fear of a much younger, more energetic man. A man who had just met a little boy called Jens Fiedler on a detour to Canada. Who watched helplessly as the world fractured a childhood.

He thought it was ironic, in a terribly sinister, hideous way. He had been there to witness the events that made Jens – that made _Fiedler_ \- into what he was today. He had been there with his futile attempts to pull a broken little boy from the darkness. He should have tried harder.

Marxist, Communist, German or no – he had been just a _boy_ , and Smiley had been a soldier who knew how to shoot an enemy with a pistol three metres away, who knew how to pick any lock, who spoke too many languages but none actually that mattered. He had done nothing when the little boy lost everything that made his life worth living, when he saw and felt more terror than all the grown men Smiley knew. The little boy became embittered, cold, calculating. Smiley did not know if he could have stopped it, if he could have showed the boy _happiness._ But he had so many chances. He should have tried harder.

In a way, he had known it would always come this. Giving that brilliant mind time to grow, learn, hate – of course the next time George saw that little boy he would have to shoot him down.

And yet, he could not make himself pull the trigger.

*

The first time Smiley met Jens Fiedler, he had made a detour to Canada for some such reason.

He was supposed to be there for three days at most, Circus business. He drove through the empty streets in a stuffy little French car, the night air streaming through the open window. His knuckles were white, fingers curled tightly around the steering wheel. He felt tense, uncertain. His thoughts travelled too often to the battlefield. The quiet little town set him too far on edge – like fractured picture of his Oxford days.

 _It’s only a mile from here,_ he consoled himself, but his mind would not calm.

A car backfired somewhere and he jumped. _Damn it._

He drove for a few minutes, the quiet fraying his nerves. And then –

_BANG!_

That was no car.

It had come from a shabby, one-story house on the right side of the road. He quickly parked the car on the curb, hands trembling with anxiety and tension. He looked around quickly: no one had left their house. They had heard, surely. They were too afraid. He could not blame them.

His pistol felt heavier than ever in his pocket as he jogged across the road. There was no payphone so he radioed the embassy. He did not explain. He did not need to.

In hindsight, he should have had some sort of a plan.

The nob of the door twisted with resistance in his palm. He toed off his Oxfords outside, opening the door with a gentleness he had almost left behind in London, with Ann. He snuck in quietly, his socks allowing him to move silently on the old, timber floorboards.

Immediately, he was confronted with yelling. A man, young. Possibly in his thirties. The French words rolling of his tongue desperately were embedded with a Saxonian twang. A sickness began to weigh heavily at the pit of his stomach.

He walked slowly through the tight corridor, pistol heavy in his hand. It was almost too dark to see, but as he neared he could make out some of the conversation. It was coming from an open door on the right, near the end of the corridor.

“S'il vous plaît!” _Please!_  “Pas mon fils! S'il vous plaît!” _Not my son, please!_

Smiley’s breath escaped him, he hesitated.

“Pas mon fils, dit-il!” _Not my son, he says!_ The second voice is loud, booming, _mocking._ It was followed by ruckus laughter. There were at least two other men in the room. _And a child._ “Fermez-vous, vous sale Juif!” _Shut up, you filthy Jew!_ More laughter.

Smiley paused, about a metre from the room. He had to breathe in deeply, to drown the fury which suddenly threatened to overwhelm him. He did not like death, and he knew Control would disapprove. But death is a mercy for some men.

He continued to the door, silent as a wraith. With all the stillness and calm he could muster, he flattened his back against the wall by the door, and peaked in.

A fireplace crackled quietly in the corner, casting the room in a misleading ambiance. It was a lounge room, but the furniture has been strewn, broken. There was glass on the floor.

In the middle, three men stood. They were all armed, with guns and wooden baseball bats and makeshift weapons. Smiley could make out their faces from here, could make out the Swastikas on their forearms and necks. By their feet, kneeling, was a man. His hands were tied behind his back and he was begging incessantly, sobs making his French almost indecipherable. Beside him, a woman lay on her front, hands tied similarly. There was a pool of blood by her head, where a bullet had entered from the back. It was terrible and frightening and animalistic and it was not a scene Smiley will ever forget.

And there, opposite the man, about a metre away, knelt a child. His back was to Smiley.

He was tied similarly, and his chin was held up high. He could not be over eight years old. He was silent.

Smiley felt almost physically sick. He swallowed the bile down, and repositioned himself behind the door. If he showed himself now, he would be shot. The man would be shot. The child would be shot.

If he waited – he only needed a single moment where the men focused on something else, that was all. A single moment and he could take out two in quick succession. He could not wait for embassy.

“Vous voulez dire au revoir à papa?” _You want to say goodbye to Daddy?_

_Damn it, Smiley, do something!_

He peaked in again, concealed by the dark. The man who spoke had positioned the bat at the base of the father’s neck. Smiley knew if he fired now, he could take him out. He’d be helpless against the others. He could not save them both.

 _Save the boy_ , he breathed in deeply. _Save the boy._

“Huh, gamin? Voulez-vous dire au revoir?” _Huh Kid? Want to say goodbye?_  The child was silent. He lowered his chin so he stared at his father, not the men. His father had not stopped begging. _Not my son, not my son._ It became a chant, rhythmic. Like a broken record, he kept pleading at the bat struck him the first time, and the second, and the third. The men just kept… laughing.

The sound of bones fracturing overpowered the crackling fire. Smiley was unfamiliar with it: the noise a skull made when it caved it. It was hollow, in a viscerally grotesque way. It took a long time, until the rhythmic _crack-crack-crack_ gave way to a sickening _squelch_.

He ended up on his front, next to his wife. The man with a bat was relentless. His face was red and the veins on his arms bulged as he brought the club down and down and _down,_ and the body shuddered and tensed and stilled. And he kept going, and Smiley could not look away. He did not know how long past until the bat beat right through the bone and brain matter and thudded hollowly against the wooden floorboard.

Blood had splattered everywhere, dying his hands and the bat a shocking red. It stained the floorboards, edging past the little boy’s knees, soaking his trousers. He was silent. The smell. God. The coppery stench was all too familiar. Smiley swallowed the bile that crawled up his throat.

The murderer threw his bat heartily across the room with a triumphant yell. “Woah! Qui savait que ça allait être si difficile?” _Who knew that was going to be so difficult?_

The others laughed along, and the two others edged away from the corpses. They half-turned their backs to Smiley. He prepared himself.

“Eh bien, Kid? Je vous ai dit d'adieu, n'est-ce pas?” _Well, Kid? Told you to say bye, didn’t I?_

_Monster._

The child did not speak. Smiley just needed a _second_ when the others were more distracted. Just a _moment –_

The man pulled a pistol from his trousers. He stepped over the father’s corpse, boots sinking into the puddle of blood. He leaned in so his gun was pressed against the child’s forehead.

Smiley could not breathe.

_Move, damn it!_

“Les derniers mots, alors?” _Last words then?_

The child tilted his chin, and Smiley felt feint. The men were still watching. _Turn around, damn it!_

In the eerie silence, he almost missed it. And then –

“London bridge is falling down, falling down…”

The boy’s voice was soft, harmonic. It had his father’s Saxonian twang. But it did not quake or tremble, like he was unafraid. Smiley feared his gun would slip through his sweat-slicked palms. In that moment, he wished for anything and everything, he did not want to be here, he did not want to watch a child die. He should not have stopped – he should have driven on he should have he should have-

“London bridge is falling down…” The man with a gun began laughing. “My fair lady…”

_There!_

One of the others turned away, as if the murder of a child was a personal affront to him. The second man hesitates. It is all Smiley needed.

His first bullet embedded itself in the man’s neck. He did not watch him fall. He aimed for the turned man’s back and felt nothing. He did not hesitate with the third.

It all took a few seconds, but it was as if a lifetime had stretched on.

All he was left with was a horrid, incomparable silence. It was worse than the war.

He was still on the other side, the child’s back to him. He was breathing too heavily. They were dead. There was no remorse.

When he could make his legs work, he ran forward, gun tucked in his coat. He knelt behind the boy and untied the rope from too-thin, bloodied wrists. “Hey, Schau mich an...” _Look at me,_ he did not bother with French.

He knelt in front of the boy and saw a sickly pale face with too prominent cheekbones and too intense eyes. His hair was a dark, tousled mess. A splatter of red stretched from one cheekbone down to his lower lip. He looked at Smiley, and saw right through him.

“Hey!” He was careful, his fingers feeling too large and heavy on slender shoulders. The boy was too thin, too fragile. Smiley feared he would break him. Smiley relied on his frame to block the massacre behind him. “Hey, was ist dein Name?” _Communicate verbally to address symptoms of shock._ He tried again, “Ich bin George...”

He boy blinked, and his eyes seemed to regain some of their focus. “Jens,” Smiley had to strain his ears to hear him, “Ich bin… Jens.” He spoke slowly, as if language was just coming back here. “Das sind meine Eltern.” _Those are my parents._

Tears burned in Smiley’s eyes, and he did his best to blink them away. “Wir müssen gehen,” _We have to leave,_ “Wir müssen auf die polizei warten.” _We have to wait for the police._ He had never felt so inadequate.

The boy just nodded. He stood, and Smiley removed his hands from those too-thin shoulders quickly. He did not seem to notice the how red the lower half of his trousers were. He barely reached Smiley’s waist.

He glanced at Smiley, and his eyes seemed fathomless. And then, he slipped past him out the door.

Smiley quickly followed him, but the boy did not continue all the way down the corridor. He paused half way at a door to the left and slipped in side.

“Hey-” Smiley called after, but before he could follow the boy re-emerged, a little girl tightly clutching his hand.

_Jesus Christ._

“Das ist Christa.” _This is Christa._ She must have been about four years old. _Jesus Christ._

He could only nod. His voice escaped him, hidden somewhere at the back of his throat. His eyes burned.

As soon as they were outside the wretched place, Smiley emptied the contents of his stomach. The children stood watching. The girl was not as silent as her brother, occasionally sniffing and wiping her eyes.

Smiley felt old and tired and he desperately yearned for Ann and London. He was not naïve. The war was not the worst of it.

When the embassy cars finally began to roll down the street, and the agents and diplomats came rushing out, Smiley was too exhausted to say a word. He could only nod. They understood.

He had never thought he would ever look forward going back to the battlefield.

*

“You’ve made quite the mess, haven’t you?”

Lesley squinted at Smiley through her glasses. He was too tired.

“Control is going to have a field day with you.”

He suddenly felt incredibly impatient. The Embassy felt too small, Lesley’s office too cluttered, his chair too uncomfortable. He just wanted to go home. “What’s going to happen to them?”

She sighed. “You killed three men, George.”

“Thank you, I remember,” he did not mean to snap. It did not help things.

Lesley ignored his question entirely. “Control’s cleaning up this mess from London. Gullium’s coming down to take over. We’re posting you back to Berlin.”

“What will happen to Jens?”

Lesley took off her glasses and rubbed her right eye carefully. Her grey hair seemed to glow under the sterile white light. “An orphanage most likely. Their parents are – were-” she corrects herself, “Jewish-Marxist refugees. We’re checking if they have any other family here, otherwise it’s completely up to the State.” Smiley leaned back into his chair, suddenly feeling old. “It’s nothing you need to worry about. Go back to Berlin, you’re in no condition to continue your task. There’ll be a car waiting for you first thing in the morning. You’re on the first flight out.”

That was about as good of a dismissal as he was ever going to get.

“Can I see them? Before I leave.” He didn’t know why he asked. He should not have.

Lesley looked suspicious for a moment, and then seemed to give in to her better judgement.

“George…”

He didn’t say anything, just looked at her. She let out another sigh.

“Quickly then. They’re in the anteroom.”

*

The anteroom too closely resembled a hospital waiting room. It seemed remarkably out of place in the embassy, with its white walls and white chairs and bright, suffocating lights. There they were, Jens seated in the very corner of the small room, his sister lying down with her head on his lap, feet tucked neatly on another chair. Someone had covered her with a blanket.

He walked up to the boy, feeling exceptionally awkward.

“Hi.”

Jens looked up. There was no blood on his face anymore, but his eyes were still fathomless. Almost empty. He did not look like he had ever cried. Smiley wondered if he fully understood what had happened. If he realised he would never see his parents again. Would he ever reconcile them with the two bloodied corpses he abandoned in the house?

“Mister Smiley,” his voice was quiet.

Smiley buried his hands into his pockets. He hesitated –

“Thank you.” His English was surprisingly good. Smiley raised an eyebrow. “I should thank you, yes?”

“I- you don’t.” He cleared his throat. The boy’s eyes were piercing, intelligent, look he understood all that he shouldn’t and more. Smiley could not look away. “You don’t have to.”

“Did you feel… Reue-” He shakes his head to himself, “remorse. Did you feel remorse for killing those men, Mister Smiley?”

Smiley was taken aback. How was he supposed to answer that?

“No.”

“Why?”

Smiley shifted. He felt too self-conscious. This was a child. “Because some men do not deserve our remorse.”

Jens looked away for a moment, as if processing the words. He nodded slowly. “Aren’t you supposed to…” he took a moment to think of the right word, “treasure the sanctity of life?”

Smiley had no answer. He was taken aback.

Jens continued quickly – “You’re a Capitalist, yes? This is the British Embassy – yes? You’re Christians. I don’t understand. Why do you not feel remorse?”

Smiley was suddenly struck by the boy’s sheer intelligence, his desire for truth, answers. His knowledge. It was frightening. “It’s not that simple.”

“Bist du ein schlechter Mensch?” _Are you a bad person?_

He did not answer. The boy did not wait for him – seemingly lost in his own head.

“I don’t think you are. I think you feel remorse Mister Smiley. Or you will.”

“Jens…”

“I understand, ja?” His voice contained a newfound urgency. “They talk to me like a child – I am not. Ich verstehe. Ich sehe.” _I understand. I see._ “My parents were Marxists.” _Were._ His acknowledgement set Smiley further on edge. “I am a Marxist. Why did you save me? You are a Capitalist. It does not make sense. Bad people make sense, ja-” Smiley did not know what to do, he is lost, enthralled, afraid - “bad people are simple – they are driven, ruthless. Like that man who would not stop swinging the bat. He kept going and going and _going_ \- Bis nichts mehr übrig war.” _Until there was nothing left._ “You are contradictory. You did not enjoy killing them. Your hands – they were shaking, I see them. Du bist gut.” _You are good._

“I…” Smiley’s hand tremble in his coat. The boy has seen too much, knows too much. How old is he?

“Du bist nicht für den Krieg gedacht, Herr Smiley.” _You are not meant for war._

“I am a soldier,” he did not know why he felt the need to justify himself.

“Nein.” Jens shook his head. He leaned back into his seat, looking far younger than eight years. “These people… they are not like you. Du liebst die falschen Leute.” _You love the wrong people._ “Kapitalismus - diese Ausbeutung - es ist falsch.” _Capitalism – this exploitation – it is wrong._ “They are not good people, Mister Smiley. Even if they fight Nazis. Their ideology – yours – it is flawed. Wrong. Du bist nicht für den Krieg gedacht.” _You are not meant for war._

Smiley’s nerves felt frayed. He could not stay here. Jens – the child was no child. He knew too much. No child should know so much. He should have cried for his parents, slept. He should have yelled and trembled and quaked with fear. He should not be sitting in the corner, taking up no space, breathing so quietly, lecturing Smiley on _war._ He was too clever, too capable.

“Goodbye, Jens.”

The boy said nothing, his piercing gaze fraying Smiley’s nerves. He would be relocated, and he would grow and have a childhood and perhaps do something incredible in his lifetime. But Smiley did not want to see.

And so, he did not look back until he was sat in the car the next morning. All the way to the airport, a severe discomfort weighed heavily on his shoulders. He could almost see the blood on his hands.

*

He had spent the rest of the war in Germany. Berlin, Leipzig. It was a cathartic few years. Watching Nazi Germany crumble before his eyes was astounding. All that was left was crags of country, a sickening of half-world embedded with a severe nihilistic purposelessness.

He had been there when they won and when they rebuilt. Control tried to convince him to go back to London, to resume his position in the Circus. He did not understand why Smiley needed to stay.

And so, soon enough it was 1948.

He met with Leamas occasionally. The man was pushing his thirties – brilliant agent, brilliant operator. But he did not seem to understand why Smiley had stayed. He told him so, whenever they met for a scotch in the little run-down bar by the border.

“I swear Smiley – I would leave the second they let me. Bloody Control, _bloody_ Circus. Bloody Mundt – that bastard is making my life too bloody difficult.”

Smiley laughed, leaning back on his barstool. The little joint was almost abandoned, and they sat far in the dark corner where they could not be overheard. “Mundt will get what’s coming to him, Leamas. Men like that always do.”

Leamas just shook his head. “He’s swatting my agents like flies, Smiley. Vicious bastard.” He took a long swig of his drink. He had moved on to the strong stuff after the war.

The sat in silence for a moment, the harsh wind outside blowing fiercely against the old glad windows. Smiley did not think they would hold for very long. Leamas pulled a packet of Navy Cuts. Smiley did not ask where he had gotten them from. He offered one to Smiley, who declined. Sticking the cigarette between his teeth, he carefully lit it. “You know, Smiley – I don’t even know why _you’re_ still here.”

Smiley chuckled. “The weather.”

Leamas snorted in response. “No really – thought you’d be back doing something academic in Oxford, or some such. Gone back to Ann.”

The mention of his estranged wife still managed to send a pang through his chest. “I don’t think I’m done here just yet.” For a brief, terribly fleeting moment – he remembered a boy with wise eyes and blood on his cheek. He took a long drink.

“Alright, be coy. Don’t have to tell me.”

They laughed the rest of the night, Smiley enjoying his friend’s company. The bid each other farewell far past-midnight. They would not see each other for some time.

*

Sometimes, after the end of the war, Smiley would walk through the disenfranchised streets of Berlin and find himself looking for a little boy with prominent cheekbones and too much sadness in his eyes.

It was dangerous, he knew, to think too much on it. But for years the thought of Jens and Christa seemed to plague him. Did they come back to Berlin? Did they stay in Canada? Were they separated? Together?

He could not help the senseless guilt that seemed to pervade him at the thought of that wretched night.

It was not until 1949 that he saw him again.

*

Smiley was driving down the crowded streets, back from a talk at in Bonn. The vigour of students had simultaneously reenergized and drained him. Their fervour, their beliefs, ideals – both correlating and opposing his own. It was like being back at Oxford.

He parked his little DKW at the little, run-down diner he visited regularly. The food was questionable at best, but something about the fading retro paint and cracked leather seats reminded him of London. The diner looked like somewhat had started to build it with vigour, impelled by grand ambition. And then they grew bored, hesitant, and the result was crags of a shop. By it was quiet, secluded, and allowed him to think.

He stepped out of the car. For once, it was not raining.

He began to make his way, lost in thought, too focused on avoiding the cracks in the side walk. And then –

“Oh!” A figure ran into him, almost knocking him off the side walk.

“Entschuldigen Sie!” The voice was high, feminine. Smiley looked up after regaining his composure.

The girl was young, no older than twelve or thirteen. Her pale face housed gentle features and wide eyes, framed by a tousle of dark locks. She had a schoolbag hoisted over one shoulder, and her sneakers were beginning to peel at the soles. She was so painfully familiar.

“Christa?” It escaped him before he could help himself. The girl readjusted her hold on the bag and squinted, pausing suddenly in her mad dash. A revelation seemed to strike her suddenly, and her eyes widened in recognition.

“Herr Smiley?”

It was her. Smiley froze. “Um, yes, I-”

“Was machst du in Berlin?” _What are you doing in Berlin?_

He hesitated, and she seemed in understand, somehow. She just shook her head and continued in English. “You have to see Jens.”

It was a terrible idea. He did not have to. He should not. He should not. _Walk away,_ he told himself. _Walk away, George. Forget._

Instead, he looked at the little girl and smiled. “Yes.”

*

He drove them to the apartment. It felt too strange, unreal. As if he would blink and this reality would dissolve before him.

Christa guided him through the streets, and they steadily became narrower. She was a bright child, although she lacked the fathomless and certainty Smiley had seen in her brother all those years ago. She filled the silence where Smiley could not, and in those moments Smiley could see the result of the whole damned crusade.

They drove for about ten minutes, to a set of secluded, run-down apartment blocks. He did not ask any questions. He almost jumped with Christa weaved her delicate little hand through his, guiding him. The overwhelming protectiveness which pervaded him felt too natural. He was careful not to press back too strongly, lest he hurt those thin fingers. He did not know how to deal with children.

They walked up four flights of stairs up a rickety, damp staircase and Smiley became painfully aware of his age. His joints seemed to creak where the staircase was silent. He suddenly felt hyper-aware of his greying hair, the lines around his eyes.

As they began to walk through the small corridor filled with identical, conformist doors – dark, locked, silent – Smiley could sense the tension ringing in his bones. He felt almost anxious, nervous. Why did he agree to this? Why would Jens want to see him, anyway? Smiley could be nothing but a reminder of the night his parents were viciously murdered. The doubt began to pervade his mind.

“Don’t be afraid, Mister Smiley.” He stared at the back of her head as she rifled through her backpack for the keys. “Jens is not home yet. But he will want to see you.”

“Why?” He could not help asking.

She twisted the key and opened the door quietly. “Du warst sein Freund.”

He stopped before he crossed the threshold. Christa went ahead of him. _You were his friend._

The door thudded hollowly behind him.

The inside of the apartment was as different to the outside as he could have imagined. It was small, but neat. There was a fragile warmness to the open space. The room was organised into a lounge, with a couch and a little wooden dining table, and a tight-fitting kitchen. There was a large window on one end, and sunlight streamed through, fracturing into golden jagged rays against the floor. It was organised, homely. Pictures of Christa’s smiling face hung in old frames on the walls.

She quickly manoeuvred through a corridor on the opposite side, and Smiley assumed it led to the bedrooms. He waited awkwardly, looking around. Between Christa’s photographs, there were others: a man and a woman. Smiley looked away. There were no photos of the little boy he so desperately needed to see.

Christa came back quickly enough, having ditched her bag. “Sit please, Herr Smiley.” She smiled at him. It was painfully sweet.

He took a seat on one of the rickety chairs. There were only two.

Christa manoeuvred her way around the kitchen and came back with a pot of tea and two teacups. The set was beautiful – thin, fragile porcelain lined with gold.

She sat opposite him and set a plate of biscuits between them. She seemed excited as she poured the tea. “These were my mother’s – we don’t use them very often. We don’t really get guests,” she sounded a bit awkward, and Smiley was tempted to help her hold the heavy pot. It seemed too large for such delicate hands. “Jens knows I like them though, so he makes us tea and calls me Madame, like in the pictures.” She giggled, and Smiley felt warm.

Smiley lost more time than he could have imagined, in the company of the beautiful little child. he was taken aback by her perseverance, her brightness. She did not seem weighed by the loss of her parents, or the dingy little flat, or her brother as her only living family. They talked about everything: she told him about school, her friends, he told her about Ann. It was refreshing. She smiled and giggled and was all too childish, and Smiley could feel happiness where there was once uncertainty and hesitance. The biscuits were stale, but he ate them and it made her giggle.

And hour or two had passed – and the sun had begun to set when he heard the jingle of keys. The tea had long since finished.

“That’s Jens.” She leapt off the chair, grabbing the fine china carefully. She moved to deposit in the kitchen when the door opened.

Smiley stood.

Jens looked almost the same as he had all those years ago. He was taller yes, but the thinness of his face was still too pronounced, and his hair just as tousled. But his eyes – they were more intense, more alert. There were dark smudges beneath them, like he slept too little and stayed up too late. His dress shirt and coat were too loose on him, the messenger bag too heavy on his slender shoulder. He looked terrible fragile, delicate, like a sharp wind could dangerously sway him. He must have been about sixteen. He weighed too little.

Jens stood frozen at the doorway. He watched Smiley with piercing eyes for a moment. There was silence.

Then he turned, closing the door behind him. When he turned back around the surprise was quelled by something far more sinister – suspicion.

“Jens!” Christa had come back. She bounded and hug her brother tightly around the middle. He glanced at her quickly. “Schau, wer ich gefunden habe!” _Look who I found!_

“Christa.” His voice was quiet, but firm. “Geh in dein Zimmer.” _Go to your room._

The girl hesitated and glanced at Smiley for a moment before nodding. She nodded at him as she left, and Smiley heard her door shut firmly.

He suddenly felt exposed, alone, without the little girl. His uncertainty and hesitation came back. His foot would not stay still.

Jens dropped his bag by the door and walked over to the table. He paused for a moment before sitting, and Smiley followed suit.

“You are still a Capitalist, Mister Smiley?” His English had gotten better. Smiley huffed out a quiet laugh.

“It seems I am,”

“That’s unfortunate,” Jens replied sincerely.

Smiley’s voice was suddenly too elusive. “When did you come back to Berlin?”

The boy looked at him for a moment, as if weighing out some unheard options. “Two years ago.”

A heavy silence stretched between them, filling up all the cracks. “You take very good care of her.”

Jens placed both hands on the table, and Smiley was caught by the brittle thinness of his wrists. He looked away. “I…” Smiley lifted his head, surprised by the conflict in his voice. “She does not remember what it was like. Before.” He sounded awkward. “It makes it easier to… be adequate for her.”

He could feel his heart fracturing. “She has a home.”

Jens laughed a humourless laugh. It was weary, too old, painful to listen to. “She does not know better.”

Smiley shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. He needed to fill the silence. “Are you studying?”

Jens looked at thin fingers for a moment. “Law. At Humboldt.”

He startled. “Already?”

Jens smiled, almost shyly. It was endearing. “They offered me an advanced standing last year. All paid for.”

Smiley breathed in. He did not know what he had expected – but this was surely better. “That’s good. Yes.”

Another pause.

“Why are you here, Mister Smiley?”

He licked his lips. His mouth was becoming dry. “I’m in Berlin on business.”

Jens just sighed, exhausted. He ran one hand through his tousled hair. “Not Berlin, Mister Smiley. Why are you _here_?”

“I-” _cannot answer that._ “I don’t know.”

He seemed to expect that answer. “I know you mean well, Mister Smiley.” He looked away. “I want to think you are a good person. But you are an Imperialist Officer.” Smiley was still. “You cannot be both.”

He was not surprised Jens had realised. The boy was perhaps too perceptive for his own good.

“What will those little men on their high pedestals say when they realise you are visiting a member of the Party?”

 _Jesus. Already._ He did not bother belittling the boy. “Do you believe in it then – your Communist philosophy?”

Jens spoke with a frightening calculated certainty. His conviction was too much like Control’s. “I believe in the equality. The peace. The change we can make through the people, Mister Smiley.” A pause. “My parents believed in it. They died believing in it. Believing we are all equal. No one should have such unfettered political – social – economic control over the masses.” He smiled to himself. It was incredibly sad. “Are you really free if you bake a whole loaf of bread, for wages that will only afford you a single slice?” They were not his own words. Smiley looked away.

“You are not an ignorant man, Mister Smiley.” He had to remind himself Jens was still so young. “I know you do not agree with the ceaseless exploitation of the people’s labour. And yet – you do not fight it.”

He was silent.

“In my experience, Mister Smiley – those who stand by and watch are just as accountable as those who commit the crime.” They no longer spoke of politics.

“But you have decided I am a good man.”

Jens laughed. It was cold, fractured. An imitation. Smiley shivered. “I have decided I do not know. I never understood the English,” his gaze was too intense. Smiley reminded himself that Jens was a teenager. He had fought wars. “My father believed he did. And then they told fascists where we were hiding. He was wrong.”

The air was frighteningly tense. Smiley had faced intellects, scrutiny, bullets. By there was something about Jens – something so terrible and calculating. He stared at Smiley like a puzzle to be solved, deconstructed. He was enormously intelligent.

“Your father believed in the goodness of people,”

Something slithered into his gaze – a hollowness, a darkness, Smiley had never seen outside the battlefield. “My father died kneeling at the feet of Nazis. He was hardly the best judge of character.”

Smiley needed to leave. He could smell the stench – the overwhelming copper stench. He could hear the _crack-crack-crack_ , the _squelch._ He could see the _red_ –

“You should leave Mister Smiley.” Jens stood. “Go back to your books, to Oxford or Cambridge. Berlin is too hollow, frayed. It is not good for your nerves. Your war is not over yet.”

Smiley was numb. The heels of his shoes echoed hollowly against the floorboards.

“Goodbye Jens.”

There was no reply.

*

“You’re on edge George,” Leamas leaned back on the rickety stool. He had another Navy Cut perched between his teeth.

Smiley glanced up at him. The pub had not changed since they had last met here.

“You’re not thinking about the kid, again, surely?”

Smiley sighed. His visit to Jens had been months ago, but it had shaken him. Something about the teenager was unnatural, dangerous. He could not place his finger on it.

He had confided in Leamas shortly after. The man had not judged him. “You didn’t see what I did, Alec.” He shook his head. His tumbler was too empty. “Is it possible for a child not to feel?”

Leamas snorted. He took a long drag from his cigarette. “Trauma, Smiley. You said so yourself. A little bit of teenage existential angst, here and there. It’s not uncommon. Not for someone like that. Child or no.”

“I don’t think so, Alec. It wasn’t _angst,_ necessarily. I remember – the first time I met him.” He leaned back. “His parents had just been murdered, brutally. And he didn’t… he didn’t cry. He didn’t yell. He didn’t…” his drummed his fingers against the tabletop, around the damp spots. “He was quiet. He processed everything so quickly. It was like he didn’t _indulge_ in – in _feeling_.”

The sat in silence for a few moments. “You’re afraid of what he’s going to become.”

Smiley did not answer. Leamas understood nonetheless.

“Does he believe in it?”

He nodded. “When I spoke to him – it was like speaking to some twisted, morbid version of Control.”

“Jesus… that bad, huh?”

“He’s brilliant, he has the necessary conviction. It won’t be too long before they pick him up and twist him into State apparatus.”

“Can we get him first?”

Smiley raised an eyebrow. He considered it briefly. “No. He has a determined sort of philosophy. It would be easier to draw blood from a stone.”

“Well,” Leamas plucked the cigarette from his lips, “let’s hope by then we’ll both be old and retired, aye?”

Smiley huffed out a laugh and drank the last of his scotch.

Hopefully.

*

The next time he saw Jens, it was not an accident.

It was the end of 1949. He was invited to Bonn university to give a talk on the economic well-fare state institutionalised by greater Western oligarchs. The accommodating advantages of private property ownership.

It had all gone spectacularly well. It was almost nostalgic: the eager students, the acoustic echoes of his own voice in the old lecture hall, the accompanying political tension. It was not a long lecture, stretching just shy of two hours. He was just about to conclude when he caught him.

Jens, by the corner at the back. His arms were folded over his chest. He looked interested but not impressed.

 _Focus._ He concluded, the students clapped and filed out. He focused on his breathing, collecting his notes as the heard footsteps echo in the now quiet theatre.

By the time he looked up, Jens was about a metre from him, hands buried in the pockets of a coat which threatened to drown him. He offered him a weak smile.

“I didn’t think this was your scene.”

Jens shook his head. “It’s not. I don’t like your ideology and I certainly don’t agree with it.” He let out a short breath. Smiley packed all the notes neatly into his suitcase. “But I can’t be naïve. Not agreeing with a perspective does not justify ignorance.”

Smiley stared at him for a long moment. “You’ve been reading Mein Kampf.”

Jens does not look ashamed.

Smiley hesitated. He felt particularly unassuming. “We could discuss it.” Jens was surprised. “Take it apart. Deconstruct it. If you like.”

He did not reply. He only nodded.

“Okay.”

“Coffee.”

“Okay.”

*

Jens was brilliant.

He was quick, intelligent, sharp. He could analyse ideology like Smiley could fault one of Hayden’s plans. Despite everything, he had an unbiased, painfully objective approach. It was almost difficult to hear.

They argued, debated. An hour turned to two, two turned to four. One meeting into seven.

Smiley did not know how it happened. One moment, he had feared the boy would become some unfettered, ruthless asset of the State. The next, they drank coffee traded sharp words and he had _hope_. The darkness, the hollowness in those intense eyes was beginning to recede – replaced with curiosity, a keen desire for truth and information. He may have even smiled once.

Smiley could scarce tell anyone what he was doing. It was wrong, terrible. He was a Capitalist British Agent dabbling and trading thoughts with a Communist. He knew Leamas suspected, but he never asked, and Smiley had ever been so thankful.

He was finally at ease. For months, they met and argued and debated and Smiley pulled Jens a little bit closer into the light, a little but further from that deeply impersonal, emotionless persona he had adopted after his parents’ death.

He remembered Christa’s words, _you were his friend._ His first friend, perhaps.

And then, of course, everything had to go to hell.

*

He recalled the day perfectly clearly.

He had given another lecture at Bonn. Suitcase in hand, he made his way outside after escaping a long conversation with the economics professor. It was past ten – the students had filtered back to their dormitories. The wind was harsh and the trees swayed rhythmically beneath the night sky, lit only by moonlight.

He was supposed to meet Jens by his car. He walked slowly, drawing his coat tighter around himself. The yelling came to his attention.

He walked more quickly. Something heavy settled at the pit of his stomach.

He turned at the side of the building and saw three men – students – fair haired, broad. One had his fists bunched in Jens’ coat. Jens had his back against the wall. His lip was bloody. One of the students had a switch blade. It felt sickeningly familiar.

Smiley had not been this furious in such a long time. He dropped his suitcase, “Hey!” His voice was as authoritative as he could manage. “Lass ihn runter!”

Two of the boys turned around. They started laughing. “Mach dir keine Sorgen um den Jude, Professor.” _Don’t worry about the Jew, Professor._ Smiley could have pulled his pistol out and felt little remorse. “Er lohnt sich nicht!” _He’s not worth your time!_

“Let him _go_. Ich werde dich alle suspendieren lassen!” _I’ll have you all suspended._ “I’ll have your names and numbers, yes?” They looked angered. “Leave before you humiliate yourselves further.”

The students look annoyed, angered, but the main lackey loosened his grip on Jens. Smiley made his way beside the boy and pulled him up straight. Jens just nodded to him, avoiding his eyes. The men began to back away. And they would have left.

If not for Christa.

“Jens!”

Jens’ head snapped up, and Smiley had never seen such a look of terror in anyone’s eyes. What was she doing here?

“Christa Komm zurück!” _Get back!_

But it was too late. Christa was running towards her brother from the opposite direction. She tried to weave past the students but one of them grabbed her by the shoulders. He had the knife.

Time stopped. There was no other way to explain it. One moment, there was movement, action, life. The next, nobody seemed to take a breath.

The boy – Jesus he must have been twenty at best – held the box knife to Christa’s throat. It was meant to be a threat, a joke. He was laughing.

But the little girl kept thrashing, and writhing and she kicked him. His hand tensed and he twitched, and it was all it took.

_“NEIN!”_

Her pale neck became red. Smiley could not breathe.

The boy dropped the knife in horror, Christa falling to her knees. She looked terrified, her little hands clutching at her throat, mouth opened in a silent scream. Her teeth were red.

It was the first time Smiley had seen a child die.

“CHRISTA!”

He could not articulate the anguish he heard in Jens’ voice. The pure, untainted cry of pain that came from deep within.

Smiley only watched as Jens fell to his knees beside his sister. His fingers were clamped around her neck and he _begged_ and _begged_ and _begged_ for her to be okay, _please – Christa – please_ , but the little girl was too still and her open eyes were unseeing. There was too much red.

“Christa. Aufwachen,” _Wake up._ His voice broke. “Aufwachen. _Aufwachen_. _Bitte. Bitte. Bitte._ ” _Please. Please. Please._ “ _Bitte_.” Smiley felt feint. His eyes burned. He was empty. Jens cradled the corpse of his little sister, and Smiley just watched.

“Please… why won’t you wake up?”

He was shaking.

Time seemed to unfreeze. Jens looked up, and Smiley was too far away to stop him.

One moment he cradled Christa. The next, the box knife was clutched between his fingers and Smiley was too slow.

“JENS NO!”

It was too late. Overcome, overwhelmed, Jens buried the knife into the boy’s chest. The others ran. Jens did not care. He pulled his arm back and stabbed him in the chest _again_ and _again_ and _again_ until Smiley reached him. The student had fallen, blood foaming at his mouth. Jens was on his knees and he _would not stop._  

Smiley wrapped his arms around him from behind, “Halt! Halt! Jens, _stop!_ ”

They struggled, Jens determined to _keep going_ , so embittered so angry so _desperate_ , but Smiley just held him until the knife slipped from between his fingers.

They were breathing hard. The boy was almost unrecognisable. Stab wounds littered his chest. They were both covered in so much red.

A violent shudder ran through the teenager. Smiley’s tears soaked his hair. _“Stop_.”

And he did. Jens stopped. In that moment. He leaned backwards in Smiley’s grasp and twisted, burying his face into the older man’s chest. And he sobbed. Twisted, heartbroken sobs. Fingers clenched in Smiley’s shirt, Smiley’s arms wrapped tightly around him, he broke.

That night, Smiley watched more than one child die.

*

Smiley knew that was the moment that pushed Jens over the edge.

He was not surprised.

He remembered little after those moments. There were German police and a hospital, and a man in suit with fair hair and pale, pale blue eyes.

There is only one other thing he recalled: a conversation.

Jens was taken from him, to be treated for shock. For the first time in his life, Smiley was lost. He did not know what to do. He stood in the darkness as people rushed around him. Still.

“Mister Smiley,” he did not turn to acknowledge the man. “Mister _Smiley._ ”

A man came to stand in front of him. His coat was dark and long. His face revealed nothing.

“Yes?” His voice was not his own. He felt disembodied. Unaware. Floating.

The man frowned. He seemed about Leamas’ age. His strong German features were shadowed by his frightening eyes: cold, calculating. As if he were an executioner measuring Smiley for the rope. It was unsettling.

“Who are you?”

He ignored the question. “Mister Smiley. I am going to ask you to end all correspondence with Jens Fiedler.”

His hands itched. There was blood beneath his fingernails. “Who are you?”

The man just tilted his head dispassionately. “Do not visit him Mister Smiley. Is this understood?”

He didn’t reply. “Who are you?”

“Fiedler is bright, you understand. It would be a shame to waste such… potential.”

“What are you saying?” No one seemed to hear them. It was as if they did not exist in that moment.

“I am saying…” the man finally smiled. Smiley wished he had not. “That you must end all correspondence with him. Murder can be justified. An affiliation with imperialist officers cannot.” His voice seemed to escape him. “Go back to the Circus, Mister Smiley. Stay on your side of the war.”

The man walked away and vanished into the night, as if he had never been there. It was the first time Smiley had ever met Mundt.

He felt cold.

*

He could not find Jens. As hard as he tried. And he did try, for weeks.

The nurse at the nursing station stared at him blankly when he gave her the name. the apartment was empty. The university had recorded him absent. He was not imprisoned, he was not dead.  No one knew anything about the fair-haired man with the threatening shark-toothed smile and pale, blue eyes. It was as if he did not exist.

To anyone else, Jens had simply disappeared. But Smiley knew. 

He knew what recruitment by the GDR looked like.


	2. the centre cannot hold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jens was done stumbling, making mistakes. He only had to live for himself now. He was brilliant. He was aware of it. He could run rings around adults since he learned to read. He could do it now. Yes, he would live for himself and the Party. 
> 
> Everyone he had once loved was gone, and perhaps, he could be glad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Less certain about this chapter. Pleas take note of tags.
> 
> also i am ded  
> why is this so difficult
> 
> title of the chapter is again from Yeats' "Second Coming"
> 
> p.s. leamas makes a guest appearance because i couldn't not

The man above him was relentless.

Jens was exhausted. He wanted to imagine he was someplace else. Someplace warmer. He tried not to think about it, but it was impossible when the bastard gripped his hips so tightly. He pushed his head further back into the pillow and raked his nails gently across the stranger’s back. He man quickened his pace and Jens focused on the bright light above him. He ignored the filthy words in his ear.

He felt cold lips at his neck and closed his eyes for a moment. He wanted so terribly to pretend.

And then, it was over. The stranger breathed hard for a few seconds before levering himself off of Jens with a groan.

Jens was still. He breathed in deeply before pushing himself upright. In the background, water ran over stained tiles. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his coat and held one between his teeth, lighting it promptly before grabbing his trousers.

He dressed quickly, efficiently, ignoring the stench of sex in the dingy little motel room. It had helped him feel, in the few weeks after. When the numbness had set into his bones, when the blood would not wash off his hands. A part of him wished he at least felt pain.

Sex with strangers had done that, at least. It was raw, terrible, frightening. The first time someone pinned his arms above his head, he felt nervous. But it was fleeting, and three – four – seven clients later it just became more _nothingness._ All the Steinhager in the world did not seem to fix him. He felt empty. Hollowed out with a serrated carving knife.

He grabbed the stack of bills on the dresser and stuffed it into his coat. The stranger was showering and Jens wanted to leave before he saw him again.

He closed the door to the motel room behind him gently, cigarette carefully balanced between two fingers. He turned and –

The man was fair-haired, broad-shouldered. And his eyes – Jens knew those eyes. The frighteningly pale blue. He had been at the hospital that night.

Jens was too tired to care. He did not want to remember. He tried to side-step him. The man blocked his path.

“Ich nehme keine Clients mehr.” _He is not taking any more clients tonight. Please and thank you._

The man did not move. Jens sighed. “Schau-”

“Ich bin Hans-Dieter Mundt.”

“Congratulations.”

“Du musst mit mir kommen.”

Jens snorted. “I don’t have to go anywhere with you.”

He attempted to side-step him again, and was very promptly slammed against the wall.

His cigarette almost fell from his fingers. Mundt had his wrists pinned with strong hands. His back ached terribly. The stranger was pressed too closely against him. He could feel an outline of a pistol against his ribcage.

The man leant in and whispered slowly in his ear. “ _Ich bin Hans-Dieter Mundt. Du musst mit mir kommen.”_

Jens shivered, releasing a shaky breath. The threat was undeniable. _Breathe._ He could not move. He briefly considered kneeing the stranger and running, but something made him doubt he would get very far.

“Okay.” He leant as far from Mundt as he could manage. The back of his head thudded against the wall. “Hat deinen Punkt gemacht, _Hans-Dieter Mundt._ ” _Made your point, Hans Dieter-Mundt._

The man released him, and Jens knew his hips were not the only part of him that would have finger shaped bruises in the morning.

“Follow me.”

*

Mundt drove a neat little DKW. It was pale blue, like his eyes. Something about the unassuming car set him on edge.

He might have been wary of entering stranger’s cars once.

They drove for about twenty minutes in absolute silence. Mundt drove quickly, purposefully. He held the steering wheel with two hands at ten and three. The odd angle would let him turn quicker, more sharply, towards the exit.

He weaved through the streets seamlessly, and Jens did not ask where they were going. He figured he could slice through the tension with a butterknife.

The parked outside a little by-the-way café called _ANIKA’s._ The trashy LED lights flickered intermediately. The wallpaper was peeling off the walls and the stench was wretched. There was a poster or two haphazardly stuck here and there, all too small to cover the cracks and holes and odd stains. It reminded him of the shack he and Smiley drank coffee in that first day.

Mundt took a seat in one of the booths like it was not his first time. Jens sat gingerly opposite him, the leather cracking and uncomfortable beneath his legs. Something about Mundt deeply unnerved him. Jens could not read his eyes – there were no lines around them, or his mouth. It was like he had never laughed.  

Neither of them said anything until the waitress poured them two mugs of burnt black coffee. Once she left, Mundt leaned in, the coffee forgotten by his elbow.

“Do you know who I represent?” Jens could not place his accent – it sounded a mix of so many places, a ridiculous pastiche of was-there’s and will-go’s. His voice was heavy, threatening. Something about his eyes made Jens want to curl his toes in his shoes. There was something about it him. He was driven, by what, Jens did not know. Marxist, Communist, whatever he was – Mundt was not driven by ideology.

Jens did not look at him. Instead, he reached for the plastic cup filled with sugar packets in the middle of the table, pouring two into his drink against his better judgement. If he was lucky they weren’t too far off the due date. He stirred the coffee slowly before answering.

“Real Estate?” The coffee was disgusting. He did his best not to gag.

Mundt looked unimpressed. “Are you happy prostituting yourself to strangers?”

“Perfectly.”

“I suppose you would be happy in prison then.”

Jens finally looked up.

“That’s where you should be, isn’t it?” He couldn’t answer. “You did commit first-degree murder.”

 _Breathe._ He looked anywhere but the eyes.

“You have potential. That is why we helped you.”

Silence.

“I have an offer for you Jens.”

A heaviness grew in the pit of his stomach. “I’m not interested.” He should not be here. _Screw it._ He stood.

“You believe in the class struggle, do you not?” He did not answer. Mundt was not deterred. “You understand the failings of Capitalist society, of private property ownership. You understand the counter-culture, the inevitability of the revolution.” It was almost music to his ears. “Your parents were Marxists after all.” His eyes narrow. “You can help the people. Change the Establishment. _Sit_ down.”

Jens paused and glared at the man. Mundt was staring at him like he was some insect plastered against the windshield of his car, like trash. It was not unfamiliar.

“Sit down Jens. Or I will make you.”

He glanced around. The waitress had disappeared. For all intents and purposes, the café was empty. Clever Mundt. He sat back down slowly.

“I am going to be generous with you Jens.” Mundt’s eyes seemed to wear a hole through him. Jens wondered if there were people who didn’t blink. It was discomforting. “I will keep you out of jail. You can re-join the Party. I will reinstate your position as a student at Humboldt.”

Jens raised an eyebrow. He had breached the terms of his scholarship when he suddenly stopped attending. He did not think he can go back to _before._ As if nothing happened.

“Not interested.” His voice did not shake. He was proud of himself.

Mundt laughed. Jens could not help but shiver. It was light, unaffected laugh. Painfully superficial, as if it masked a hidden evil.

“ _Pathetic.”_ He suddenly spat. “Christa would be disappointed.”

Jens froze, his fear promptly forgotten. A sudden anger began to surge through him. “Shut up.” He knew what Mundt was doing, but he could not control himself.

Mundt just kept laughing. “Touched a nerve, have I Jens?” He did not wait for an answer. “Still so sensitive? I wonder why. You did kill her after all-”

“ _Shut up._ ”

“But it is true, no? She was only there because of you.”

Jens’ knuckles were white. His nails dug bloody crescents into his palms. _He’s manipulating you_ , a voice echoed at the back of his head. _You’re playing his game._ He ignored it.

“Pathetic.”

“ _Shut up!_ ”

“She would be _so ashamed._ ” Jens knew he was only taunting, but it was so difficult to hear. “And your parents.” He shook his head in mock sadness. “If your father could _see you now._ ”

He released a shuddering breath. It hurt.

“Wallowing in self-pity. Broken. _Weak._ ”

“I’m not weak,” his voice trembled. He blinked back tears. _You are not a child._

“Prove it.”

Silence.

“Accept my offer, and you will go back to university. You will study and graduate with the other students. You will have a place with me waiting for you. In the Abteilung.”

He ran a hand through his hair. His palms were sweating.

“Accept my offer Jens.”

_Breathe._

“What…” he looked away. “What is it? What does it entail?”

Mundt just smiled, and it was a smile Jens would never forget. “I cannot tell you until you accept.”

He wondered if it could be worse than selling himself to strangers for cigarettes and counterfeit cash. Probably.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

He hesitated. “Are you going to slam me into anymore walls?”

 “Yes.”

Mundt finally drank his coffee. It must have been cold by then. He drank it slowly, impassively, all the while staring at him above the rim of the mug. There was a desperate itchiness beneath Jens’ skin.

“You’re going to seduce a man,” Jens could not help the huff of laughter. Bloody ironic. “And then you’re going to kill him.”

He stopped laughing.

*

Jens made it to his dingy little apartment past midnight, the meet-up time and address Mundt gave him weighing heavy on his thoughts.

He was simultaneously exhausted and restless. There was a simmering between his ribs, a fear which began to overpower the numbness. He was too uncertain, too unsure. He vacillated in the space between: _should I kill myself, or drink a cup of coffee?_ He abandoned his on a rickety chair. Mundt’s words hung over him like a grey cloud. It should not have bothered him as much as it did. _You’re already a murderer. One more does not make a difference._

There was too much to do and not enough time. There was too much time and nothing worth doing.

Of course he wanted to study. To undermine the Establishment. To lead the revolution. For such a long time they had simply been _dreams_ , aspirations. Unattainable. And now the man with the cold eyes and the frightening smile had offered to unlock the bolted door for him.

So why couldn’t he just _say yes_?

He had been destabilised, anxious, since that night. He had suffocated his distress beneath a veil of apathy as the weight of his reality slowly eroded his sense of self. He was decentred, frayed. A shadow.

He was alone.

As he stood at the door of the empty apartment, it hit him.

It struck him painfully between the shoulders and he could not help but stumble. He was imbalanced. His world was shifting and he was falling and he had bloodied his hands trying to reach the light.

Christa was gone.

His parents were gone.

 _Smiley_ was gone.

There was no one.

He wondered, bitterly, if that was the entire point. If by some cruel divine spin of predestination, he was always condemned to this shallow hell. To wallow in the isolation. He did not know what was left of his heart. A piece seemed to fracture every time he managed to put himself back together again.

He as so tired.

His new apartment was a squalid little room with a mattress and no windows. The first time he had gone _there_ , the home he and Christa shared for all those years, he tore it apart.

What little furniture they had collected was reduced to broken bits and pieces. The frames of those he loved lay fractured and irreparable on the floorboards. His mother’s fine china set was the first thing he shattered against the peeling walls. He still did not know why she was _there_ that night.

He had yelled into the quiet. Where he should have heard childish, feminine laughter, he heard such an abrupt silence. Where he should have felt warm fingers woven through his, he felt a cold, empty space. He did not have any more tears to cry. When Christa left, she took all the happiness with her. All his purpose.

His apartment suddenly felt so claustrophobic. He could not be here.

He left the way he came.

*

It was cold outside. The wind howled angrily and he shivered. Drawing his arms tightly around himself, Jens cursed leaving his coat. But he could not make himself go back.

He walked in the dark for an hour. He did not know where to go, what to do. There was an itch beneath his skin and he would have thrown up if he had anything to throw up. He desperately craved a cigarette.

Jens reminisced. It had been so long since he had indulged in those memories, the ones he shared with Mister Smiley.

The man was an endless contradiction to him. He did not make sense. He seemed ever the moralist, he seemed to _care_ , and yet he had such a conviction in the Capitalist state. Jens understood his ideology, of course, but he could not justify Mister Smiley’s efforts. Serving in the war, lecturing at Bonn, operating in innards of post world-war espionage. The man could fervently argue the benefits of private property ownership and uphold the image of British nationalism, and yet he drank coffee with a Communist and had a reverent respect for the Arts. He did not make sense.

And yet, he was his friend. His first friend. His only friend, perhaps. Jens had never met something like him, someone he trusted enough to let spend time with Christa when he was not there.

_Christa._

It did not matter anymore. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. He felt dizzy.

His feet took him to the more secluded, dangerous parts of Berlin. He knew these alleyways like the back of his hand.

As he travelled deeper into the filthy bowels of the hidden city, he became aware of the gradually dimming lights. Some parts of the streets were completely shrouded in darkness.

Ordinarily, Jens would avoid them. Walk around. Take the longer path.

It did not feel necessary today.

It must have been close to two in the morning when it happened. He walked in the darkness, his heart beating shallowly in his chest, his hands buried deep in his pockets, head down. He did not feel the arm wrap around his chest until his back was against the wall.

His breath escaped him. He desperately tried to see through the dark. It was futile.  A heavy body pressed hard against his slender figure. Fingers wrapped tightly around his wrists. This was becoming too familiar.

“Was ist ein hübsches kleines Ding wie hier?” _What’s a pretty little thing like you doing here?_ The breath was warm in his ear, the voice deep and suggestive.

He was not in the mood.

“Das geht Sie nichts an,” _none of your business._ He tried to move but the man was too tall, too broad. He handled Jens like a child.

“Oh, feisty, are we?” His accent was pronounced. Jens drew in a deep breathe. He closed his eyes. _Calm down,_ he chanted, even as a thigh worked its way between his legs.

“I’m _not interested_ ,” he pressed. The man did not release him. He was starting to see why this may have been a terrible idea.

The voice chuckled in his ear. “ _Lass mich gehen_.” _Let me go._

The man kept chuckling, deep and throaty, and Jens flinched when thick, strong fingers worked their way up his neck to cradle his jaw. Goosebumps riddled his skin. The man shifted, and a warm breath fell on Jens’ lips. He felt sick.

He wanted to say _please._ Tears burned at the corner of his eyes. _Please._

He did not beg. “Let me _go._ ”

He did not yell, did not scream. He knew no one would hear. He knew how this was going to end. It did not make it easier to accept.

The man kissed him, and it was brutal. Jens did his best to keep his lips pressed together but the stranger was ruthless, relentless. A tongue forced its way between his teeth and he could not breathe. The man tasted like tobacco and cheap spirits and it was vile, and Jens could feel the first tear travel down his cheek.

_Weak._

His arms were pinned by his sides. He tried struggling, thrashing, _anything_ , but he was exhausted and the man was too _strong_ , too assertive. His legs had become numb.

When the kiss was over he twisted his head away and breathed in the cold night air like a man deprived. The man above him laughed, a hearty, warm laugh. _Do not cry._ _Do not beg._

“Will I be your first, _my Sweet_?”

He couldn’t see through the darkness. His tears blurred his vision regardless. _“Go to hell!”_ Jens spat in his face.

Silence.

One of his arms was released. Before he could move, fingers wrapped tightly around his neck, crushing his windpipe.

He gasped. He choked, struggling for air. “St-” he could not make the words come out. His eyes drooped at their own accord. His feet almost gave in beneath him.

The fingers tightened, nails digging painfully into the hollow of his neck. He was going to die. _Pleasepleasepleaseplease –_

For a moment, he thought of seeing Christa again. His mother. His father. For a moment, a terrifying, quick moment, everything felt like it might be okay.

And then the fingers unwrapped from his neck, and he could _breathe_. He drew in air like it was the most glorious thing, shuddering, trembling. _He could breathe._

His victory was short lived when the man grabbed him by the hips and twisted him, his forehead hitting the wall painfully. He thrashed but it was useless, his cheek now hard pressed against the cold concrete. His wrists were pinned above his head with a large hand. The stranger’s other hand travelled across his chest and _further down._

_This is going to happen._

He was breathing quickly. His heart was going beat out of his chest. He could not escape.

“You _little_ whore!” The stranger hissed venomously in his ear. Jens had not felt this kind of fear in a long time. “I’ll _show you-”_

Grubby fingers began to unbutton his trousers and Jens pretended. He pretended this was not happening. He pretended he was somewhere else. With Christa and Mister Smiley maybe. Drinking tea from his mother’s fine china set. His sister would giggle and he would ruffle her hair, and Mister Smiley would hide his smile in his teacup. He imagined it was warm. There were no strange hands caressing his skin. His knees were not being forced apart.

He could taste his own tears. The man had undone his buttons. It echoed desperately; the sound of a belt loosening, the pathetic _thud_ of the stranger’s trousers as they fell onto the filthy street. He felt the heavy warmth at his back.

_Pretend. Do not cry. Do not beg._

_Please._

“Don’t worry, Sweet. _I’ll be gentle._ ”

_Please. Stop._

And then – the hands reaching _there,_ the cold, cold touch – the weight at his back, the vile breath in his ear –

they _disappeared._

He froze.

For a moment, he Jens was paralysed.

_BANG!_

It was deafening, unmistakably. The sound of a gunshot that haunted his dreams since he was eight. He turned from the wall but pressed his back against it. The stranger was gone. The smell of gunpower was overpowering. He was blind in the darkness, backing away from the commotion. Footsteps followed him. He stumbled in his haste _– run, run, run –_ but he was too slow.

Someone grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him away, to an adjoining alleyway. He kicked and yelled, but he was too dizzy, too undone. He tried digging his feet into the ground, but his sneakers slipped helplessly off the filthy concrete. The fingers clamped around his wrist so tightly he thought his bones would break. He killed him – the stranger was lying dead in that alleyway, trousers around his ankles – he was -

“ _Beruhigen!_ ” _Calm down._ He knew that voice.

He was dragged beneath a dingy lamplight.

Mundt.

The man looked furious. His eyes were colder than ever and his lips were twisted into a sneer. He let go of Jens.

He stumbled, barely managing to stay on his feet. A severe wave of vertigo hit him and planted his palms against his knees. He breathed hard for a few minutes. The absence of light was terrifying. He was shaking like a leaf. He felt like an absolute wreck.

“ _Pathetic_.” Mundt sounded disgusted. When Jens can force himself to, he looked up. Mundt was glaring at him like he is worth less than the gum stuck to the sole of his shoe. “You’re _pathetic._ ”

Jens could barely stand, but he forced himself to straighten. When he did, Mundt’s fist struck the hollow of his cheek.

He stumbled with the force of the blow. One hand was pressed against the wall of the alleyway, fingers splayed. His cheek throbbed painfully. For a moment, he was irrational.

“You _hit_ me!”

“I should have done _much more_.”

He wiped his tears with the back of his hand. It took him a few minutes to regain his composure. He did up his buttons. Mundt was patient.

He was proud of himself when he could finally stand straight.

“You followed me.” His voice was hoarse. The remains of such a perverse fear flowed through his veins.

Mundt _tssked,_ as if Jens was some silly child. He was suddenly overwhelmed by such an irrational anger.

“I should have let him finish.”

“You _bastard-”_

“You’re _weak!_ ”

It was the first time Mundt had yelled at him so viciously. Jens stumbled. _Weak – weak – weak –_

“You’re _weak,_ Fiedler. Pathetic. _I should have let him take you_ in that filthy alleyway. _I should have_ let him slit your worthless throat. You’re pathetic. Why I thought you were good enough for the Cause-” He snorted, and Jens was fraying at the seams. “You’re not good enough. You’ll never be.”

“ _Stop._ ”

Mundt looked like he had something else to say, but he stopped himself, as if Jens was not worth his time.

He walked away, and part of Jens wished he had never saved him.

*

After Mundt left him in the dark, Jens ran.

He reached his flat in less than an hour. He did not linger or stop or hesitate. He ran with the fear pervading his mind like some terrible entity. It urged him on and he ran so quickly the soles of his sneakers threatened to tear.

He did not stop until he was in the small, claustrophobic space. He turned on the lights quickly and relished in being able to _see._

He was breathing hard, shaking. He had not felt so overwhelmed since he had sobbed into Mister Smiley’s chest that night.

His head throbbed painfully. He stumbled to the bathroom and promptly emptied the meagre contents on his stomach into the sink.

Fingers curled tightly on either side of the porcelain, he heaved uncontrollably for a few minutes. When he finally composed himself enough to lift his head, his reflection in the mirror startled him.

He looked almost translucent. The lines of his face seemed to be carved out of stone. A deep purple was stark where Mundt had struck him. The hollowness of his cheeks made him look painfully thin.

And he was.

Jens had not realised how far he had let himself fall. He gingerly drew his fingers across his collarbone. It felt so sharp and prominent he had half a mind to believe it would break through the skin. He swallowed, grabbing the edges of his shirt and lifting it above his head.

He had always been thin, but he had never been able to see this many of his ribs before. He did not even need to stretch. His chest seemed concave where it should have been flat. Even his fingers looked brittle.

He stared for the longest moment at the shadow in the mirror. He stared until he felt sick again, until he could no longer meet his own eyes.

Had he always been like this? Was this why Mister Smiley always looked him with such infuriating concern? He could not remember the last time he ate.

He stripped the rest of his clothes and stepped into the little shower in the corner, turning the knob for hot water almost all the way. The water scalded his skin. It seemed to take away the ash. For a long, terrible second, he missed Mister Smiley.

Or perhaps he missed having some semblance of normal. He stood under the water until he could not bear the heat any longer.

On his way out of the bathroom, he grabbed his towel and draped it over the mirror.

*

Jens could not sleep.

It had taken two and a half hours for his mind to process the gravity of _everything._ It struck him like an epiphany.

His thoughts were an absolute mess. Jens did not like mess. He craved organisation, neatness. He was tidy. He planned before he acted. Since he was a child, and his father’s blood had splattered against his cheek, he had not let himself come undone. For his little sister, he did not have the time or the energy to mourn his parents. They were there, and then they weren’t. Perhaps he should have wept when he had the chance. It did not matter anymore.

Christa had been his tether. He did not indulge in sadness, or fear, or anything which could have caused chaos or disarray. And then she bled out in his arms, and he stabbed a man to death, and nothing seemed to matter.

_Dummkopf._

He had been a fool. Yes, she was gone. But he had experienced loss before. He had hurt. This was not any different. Her loss should not have affected him any differently.

If tonight had taught him anything, it was that he had _indulged._ He had let himself fall too far. Yes, perhaps it would have been healthy to mourn for a week, two perhaps. It had been months.

He had lost sight of his objectives, his aspirations. Mundt was right. He had become weak.

It was difficult to acknowledge, but he had to acknowledge it. He had lost himself in the throes of fear and hate and grief. It was pathetic.

 _The Party._ Yes. That was his objective. It had been, since his father read him the manifesto as a child. Since he devoured _Das Kapital_ in German and English and French and Russian. He was going to make the change. Become the law and lead the revolution. Communism was the future.

He did not know how he lost sight of his goal. Mister Smiley had weakened his resolve. He had spent months with the man, chatting as if they were friends. He was a Capitalist. An Imperialist Officer. Jens was so encompassed in his desire for a personal connection, for some semblance of _friendship_ , he had betrayed himself in the process. Smiley had felt _relevant_ to him. Important. It was wrong. Time spent with Smiley made him feeble. Vulnerable.

Pinned against the wall in the dark alley, his cheek against the cold concrete, he had been terrified. It was infuriating. He had walked far from the street lights knowing what he would find. And yet he did it anyway.

Perhaps some part of him wanted to die. Perhaps he wanted to give in to the exhaustion that weighed his bones and wriggled between his joints. It did not matter now.

He was never going to be so pathetic again. Indeed, Mundt was right. His goal was the same as it had always been. He stumbled when his parents died. When they returned from Canada. When he ate nothing for a week so Christa would not go hungry. He stumbled when he saw Mister Smiley after all those years and deliberately went to Bonn to find him. He stumbled again when Christa died.

He was done stumbling, making mistakes. He only had to live for himself now. He was brilliant. He was _aware_ of it. He could run rings around adults since he learned to read. He could do it now. Yes, he would live for himself and the Party.

Everyone he had once loved was gone, and perhaps, he could be glad.

*

He arrived fifteen minutes before he was supposed to.

Mundt seemed to have a preference for dodgy half-shops with questionable smells. Jens pulled his coat tighter around him and leant against the lamppost just around the corner. For a moment, he wondered if the events of last night would change Mundt’s mind. But he still felt relaxed, for the first time in such a long time. He felt renewed, re-energised. He had purpose.

Mundt did show up. He pulled up in his little car at exactly eleven-fifteen. Jens did not rush. He walked calmly to the passenger side and felt the leather shift as he sat.

The man seemed to have sensed the change in him. He glanced at Jens and seemed pleased with what he saw. His fingers loosened from around the wheel.

“You will listen. You will speak when spoken to. You will not ask questions. Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

He was satisfied. Jens could tell by the flash of his eyes. It was not pleasure. It was hunger. Everything began to fall together. Once Jens reorganised his thoughts, his composure, once he became the person he was before, everything became clearer. He could answer all of the questions he had wondered at _ANIKA’s_. Mundt was empty, starved. He played Jens like a fiddle in the alleyway. He had put so much effort into recruiting him because he was driven by self-interest, personal gain. Jens was his secret, his key. He imagined there were few others with his conviction, his apathy, his _skills_. His lack of attachments.

Jens knew _exactly_ what motivated Mundt.

It made things easier. If he understood his drive, he could manipulate him.

Yes, it certainly made things easier.

*

“Full name?”

“Jens Oszkár Fiedler.”

“I’m going to relay information to you now. I need to you affirm every fact is correct. Understand?”

Jens did not shift in his seat. He kept his shoulder straight as the woman’s eye bore into him. He briefly wondered why she was conducting the interview in English. He resisted the urge to bury his hands in his pockets and warm his fingers. The room was too cold, impersonal. White walls, a metal table, a chair on either side. A two-way mirror on the east wall.

“Seventeen years old. Born December 21, 1933.”

“Ja.”

“Mother: Maria Adam Schneider.”

“Ja.”

“Born 1908. Died 1941.”

Ja.

“Father: Oszkár Fiedler.”

“Ja.”

“Born 1905. Died 1941.”

“Ja.”

“Only sibling: Christa Fiedler. Female.”

“Ja.”

“Born 1937. Died 1949.”

“…Ja.”

“No living family.”

“Ja. Keine lebende Familie.” _No living family._

She pushed her thin lenses up the bridge of her nose her forefinger. She noted something down on the papers. Her greying hair was pulled in a severe bun.

“What was the extent of your correspondence with the Imperialist Officer, George Smiley?”

Jens looked impassive. He wondered how long they had been watching him for. “We conversed on twelve different occasions over a period of approximately seven months.”

“All in Berlin?”

“And Bonn.”

“Were you aware of his status as an Imperialist Officer at any time during your correspondence?”

There was no point in lying. “Yes. From our first meeting.”

The woman nodded to herself. Her face gave away nothing. “When was the date of your initial correspondence in Germany?”

“February 1949.”

“How did it come about?”

“Christa was returning from school when she saw him. She recognised him from Canada.”

“What did you talk about?”

Jens articulated his answer carefully. “He was interested in my studies. He asked about our return to Berlin.”

“Interested how?”

His answer was prepared. “I think he felt some measure of responsibility for us.”

“Because of your parent’s murder?”

“Yes.”

“What did you talk about those eleven other times?”

“Philosophy.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Smiley,” he was careful to omit the _Mister,_ “has a… determined sort of philosophy. Nationalistic, perhaps. But not to the extent of patriotism. He was a moralist, and yet he believed in the workings of Greater Western Capitalism.” He looked pensive for a moment. The woman waited patiently. “He was passionate about the economics – he believed the benefits of private property ownership in Britain outweighed the detriments. That privatisation, corporatisation – even resulting in the monopolisation and oligarchizing of public goods – could be justified.” He was careful to leave the rest of his answer for the next question.

“That is easy enough to understand. It does not explain why you met with him nearly a dozen times.”

There it was. Jens looked contemplative. “Smiley was fascinating to me. He was bi-partisan, yes. He could see the failings of the free market – yet he was not inclined to change it.” He shook his head to himself. “Smiley is brilliant. I wanted – _needed –_ to understand him. His drive. He was not ignorant, and yet, with all he knew he was somehow satisfied with the current political system. I often wondered if all Capitalists were so contradictory.”

The woman noted something else down, and she looked satisfied. Jens knew this was a test he had passed.

“You will need to provide detailed accounts of all your correspondences with him.”

“Of course.”

She nodded, and stood promptly. “Someone will be in soon. You’ll have to complete the mandatory examinations before you can be submitted and debriefed. Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

When she left, Jens was careful not to shift too much. He wondered who was watching from the other side of that mirror. He decided it did not matter.

*

They did every test Jens could have imagined, and then some. They took every type of DNA from him. He was all too compliant.

“Auf die Waage Schuhe ausziehen.” _Onto the scale._

Jens stood from the examination table. The doctor was a short, feeble-looking man. He looked like he belonged in a little country town.

He stepped on the scale, keeping his head straight. The man stood beside him and read the number off the glass-plated screen. He released a noise of non-committal.

“Es gibt schnellere Wege, um dich zu töten.” _There are faster ways to kill yourself._

Jens turned to face him, one eyebrow lifted in confusion.

“ _Das Kapital_ weighs more than you do.” Jens didn’t reply. The doctor did not need him to. He continued in English. “If you’re trying to kill yourself, starvation is not very efficient.” He sounded decidedly unimpressed. “Step down.”

He did.

“Streifen.” _Strip._

He hesitated.

The man chuckled. Jens decided he did not like him very much. “Son, you’re very pretty, but a bit too young I think.” He seemed to find his own joke remarkable.

Jens undressed.  He had undressed in front of men and women before. He had little reason to feel ashamed. But thinking about his reflection in the fractured mirror – the jutting bones, the concave places - it was difficult not to feel self-conscious.

_Breathe._

He stood completely still. The doctor seemed content to walk around in a slow circle, like a wolf. Jens could not help the nervousness that came upon him when gloved hands began poking and prodding. The unfamiliar touch reminded him too much of the stranger in the alleyway. _Breathe._

There was a light touch against his right hip. Jens did not look down, or at the doctor. He seemed disturbingly fascinated by all the jutting bones and unnaturally pallid skin.

“Ja. Kleid.”

Jens tried not to look to eager about redressing. The fabric covering his skin brought about a sudden relief, easing a tension from his shoulders he did not realise had been there.

The doctor jotted things down in his note pad while Jens stood impassively in the middle of the room.

“You’re going to have to refrain from vigorous sexual intercourse until the task is over.”

Jens did his best to mask his embarrassment. “I don’t - ”

The doctor _tssked._ “You have a matching set of bruises on your wrists and hips. There is also some discolouration on your left shoulder blade and lower back.” Jens was really getting tired of being slammed into walls. It had almost become a gimmick. “They’ll want you perfectly ripe for your task.” He went back to his notes. Jens pushed back the sick feeling that seemed to swell in the pit of his stomach.

“Of course,” he muttered. _For the Party._

He was all too glad to leave the office, content to think he would never see the doctor again.

*

“Sit.”

A whole week had passed before he went back.

“Your test results were satisfactory.”

Comrade Anya sat opposite him. She could not have been over thirty years old. She wore her dark hair in a bob that curled around her ears. She was the first agent Jens had seen smile.

“I’m going to debrief you now.” They were sat in the same room with the two-way mirror. It felt colder than before.

“Okay,” he replied, remembering the necessity of verbal confirmation. He suspected everything was recorded.

“In a nutshell, Comrade Fiedler-” he resisted the urge to smile – _Comrade -_  “you are going to accommodate yourself with the target and then eliminate him. I believe Comrade Mundt notified you of this already?”

“He did.”

She nodded. “Good. The mission will be executed in eight weeks. It’s a tight timeframe for everything we have to teach you, but it will have to do.” She held up three fingers. “Communication. Seduction. Elimination.” He nodded. “How familiar are you with Russian?”

“As a language?”

“Ja. Have you heard it spoken? Perhaps you have Russian friends?”

He ran a hand through is hair. “I am fluent.”

Anya seemed surprised. “Who taught you?”

He shook his head. “No one. I taught myself.”

“Kak vy uchilis'?”

“Moy otets byl lingvistom. YA izuchil yego zametki. YA chital mnogo filosofii.” _My father was a linguist. I studied his notes. I read a lot of philosophy._ The Russian rolled effortlessly, beautifully, off his tongue. Anya laughed pleasantly.

“This will certainly make things easier.” Jens let himself smile slightly. It seemed to encourage her. “We can start with the second part of your training then.” _Seduction._ “Follow me.”

They travelled through the labyrinth of corridors. The walls were a dull grey, each door identical to the previous. The walked down three flights of stairs, Anya’s heels _clicking_ loudly all the way. Few people passed them. Jens memorised the route.

“Now Comrade Fiedler – the art of seduction,” she spoke as if it was an everyday thing. “This will be a practical, hands-on training,” he was not nervous – he was not, “but Comrade Mundt tells me you have experience?”

_Translation: Mundt tells me you are a whore._

“Yes.” He answered carefully. “It is not completely unfamiliar to me.”

“Good.” They reached an unassuming drab door. Anya opened it and ushered him inside ahead of her.

It was a little room with flowery blue wallpaper and ambient lighting. It was the first strike of colour he has seen at the Headquarters. The entire room was empty, besides a queen-sized bed with dark cotton sheets in the corner and a wooden chair by it. A frilly rug had been laid over the floorboards. It looked almost like an ordinary bedroom.

“This is him?”

Jens was startled. He whipped around to see a man in a navy suit in the opposite corner. He had brown hair and a steely gaze. He had been so still Jens had completely overlooked him.

Anya did not look surprised. “Comrade Reiner, meet Comrade Fiedler.”

The man walked over to him slowly. His hands were folded together behind his back. He seemed to tower over Jens, his smile wide and dangerous and completely superficial.

“Comrade Mundt’s latest catch?” His Bavarian accent was soft, having faded with time. He looked Jens right in the eye and the younger man did his best not to flinch. “I must say he fits the profile quite well.”

Anya nodded. It was as if Jens was not even in the room. “He is fluent in Russian already. I want him back from you in no more than three weeks so we can progress to the final part of his training.” Reiner nodded. “Jens,” she turned to him. Jens decided he liked her. She was clever, manipulative, but she was also candid with him. It told him a lot. “Comrade Reiner is responsible for training all our…”

“Honey pots,” Reiner filled in helpfully.

Jens nodded. “I understand.”

“You will receive more intensive training in the future of course, but for now we are on a rather tight schedule. He will teach you the basics, the necessities of the art form. You are to obey his every command without question. Your session times will vary. He will report on your progress following every session. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Comrade Anya.”

“Excellent,” she smiled, and it looked surprisingly sincere. “I’ll see you around, Comrade.”

Jens felt somehow bereft without her comforting presence, and quickly berated himself for the weakness. Reiner waited a few moments after the door closed, listening to the furthering _click-clack_ of her heels as if to make she sure she was really leaving.

“In here you are to refer to me as Sir. Understood?”

“Yes. Sir.”

Reiner nodded. “I will refer to you as whatever I please.” Jens made no comment. “Alright then,” Reiner slid his jacket off his broad shoulders. He deposited carefully on the bed. He then pulled the wooden chair to the middle of the room and smiled a shark-toothed smile at Jens. “Seduce me.”

“Excuse me?”

Reiner sighed. “I expect you to follow my command without question, Jens.” He realised he was treading a very fine line. Reiner did not sound impressed.

“Yes, sir.”

Jens took of his coat slowly. He took the few moments to formulate a plan.

It was clear Reiner was not expecting very much. He could use that to his advantage. It was also clear the man was not like his previous clients. Reiner did not _want_ Jens, he wanted Jens to _make_ him want him. Glancing at the seemingly bored man in the chair, arms folded lazily over his chest, Jens realised seduction was a fine art indeed.

He turned his back for a moment and lay his coat by Reiner’s jacket. He took the precious seconds to shield his gaze from the man and compose himself, to quell the nervous tension fluttering his veins. _Breathe._

He untucked his dress shirt from his trousers and undid his first two buttons so that only the slightest sliver of pale skin could be seen. He also undid the buttons on his cuffs but did not roll up his sleeves.

When he turned around, Reiner’s face was impassive. But Jens knew he had noticed the exceptionally subtle changes. The slight drop of his shoulders, the slightly more prevalent rise of his chest as he breathed.

He walked over to the man in no rush. _Control._ His shoes sunk into the rug.

He paused for a split second in front of Reiner. The man seemed to expect him to approach him directly.

And so, he went around.

He knew the only way to break the man’s façade was to surprise him with the unexpected. Reiner would be more tense, uncertain, and it would allow Jens the perfect space to slide through and make him come undone.

Around the back of the chair, he _almost_ brushed his fingers against one broad shoulder. He kept himself in Reiner’s peripheral vision, let him feel his radiating body heat without actually touching him.

The fingers of his left hand danced across the fabric slowly before _ever-so-gently_ brushing against the back of Reiner’s neck. The skin was smooth beneath his fleeting touch, and fleeting it was.

He was completely behind the man now. He knew Reiner could not see him from where he sat, so he leaned in a little bit closer. He was silent as he bent his knees – a pin dropping would have been louder. He released a quiet breath by Reiner’s ear, and relished in the almost imperceptible tension that grew in his shoulders. He had not realised Jens was so close. _Perfect._

He let his soft locks brush against the man’s cheek as he straightened, the fingers of his righthand curling around the back of the wooden chair so his fingernails grazed the man’s shoulder blade. Reiner leaned back ever so slightly and Jens did not realise how easy this would be.

He completed the semi-circle slowly before stopping on the opposite side he had started. He had to be careful now.

His body still parallel to Reiner’s, he straightened his ring finger and brushed his knuckle against the man’s cheekbone, just above his stubble.

It was the first real touch he had initiated and it was _oh so minor_ , but Reiner’s eyes followed every movement. He used the same cold fingertip to outline the right side of Reiner’s jaw, in a slow sensual curve. All the while, he bent down and turned slowly so they were almost face to face but not quite. Rather, Reiner’s eyes found the pale skin of his neck. At this angle, Jens knew he could see his sharp collarbone, not quite hidden by the white fabric anymore.

_I have you now._

He inched ever so closer and bent his head further, so Reiner’s eyes actually found his face. His dark locks fell over one eye, casting his face in ominous shadows beneath the warm light. He was almost cathartic in his movements, his tongue darting out _slowly_ , almost casually, to wet his bottom lip. Reiner’s pupils dilated slightly, and Jens knew exactly how much his lips glistened in that moment. His right hand was just by Reiner’s knee, palm flatted against the chair. He did not touch him again.

Their faces were only a few inches apart, and Reiner was close enough to kiss. But Jens knew it was too soon – so he let his eyes droop and is eyelashes flutter against his pale skin, before straightening slowly. He was aware of how the shirt stuck to his lithe body as he did so.

Reiner released a slow breath, and Jens tried not to relish in the confidence which began to grow between his ribs. _Maintain a façade of indifference. Control._

“I’m beginning to get bored, Jens.”

Reiner’s voice did not shake, and Jens begrudgingly gave him credit for it. Jens knew he had only spoken because his touches – his _promises_ – were eliciting the correct response. Reiner wanted to throw him off, destabilise him. He knew if he rushed he would fail, but if he maintained the same speed Reiner would remain mostly unaffected.

So he turned, and sat on his lap.

The man was surprised, and Jens smiled to himself.

His thighs were perfectly accommodating, but Jens was careful to balance his weight so not to wake the man from the spell he was falling under. He sat side ways and casually crossed his legs over one another. His left hand rested on one of his own thighs, fingers curling inwards slightly. Reiner tracked the movement with his eyes.

Jens leaned in and twisted his torso so they were facing each other, chests almost touching. _Engage the senses._ He lay one arm boldly over Reiner’s shoulder and curled it around the chair, so his fingernails brushed comfortably against the middle of his back.

He let himself lean in, and in, and right to Reiner’s ear. The man was silent – too silent. Jens knew it was only because he was focusing on controlling _other_ parts of himself.

His breath was cold against the shell of Reiner’s ear. His hair was soft against his cheek. _Control_. He let out a quiet, _pretty_ chuckle. “Vy uvereny, _Ser_?”

The Russian seemed to do the trick. Or maybe it was the sensual _Sir_ he added, but Reiner audibly swallowed. It was music to his ears.

Before the man could say anything, while he was still so focused on Jens’ voice in his ear, and the hand dancing across his back and along his shoulder, Jens inched the fingers of his unused hand forward. He did not have to look to precisely flatten his palm against Reiner’s muscled chest, right over the buttons. He shifted his weight ever so slightly and let two long fingers toy with one button, _teasing_ it almost out of the hole.

“Vy mozhete kosnut'sya, Ser.” _You can touch, Sir._

The response was delicious, the sudden stiffness of Reiner’s legs. It would not be long now.

He leaned back slightly and neared Reiner’s face. The man was trapped by his gaze. The hand on his shirt travelled up the fabric and to Reiner’s shoulder, _slowly_ down his arm until his fingers found the man’s hand.

He was careful in his ministrations. Move too quickly, and he would lose Reiner. Too slowly, and Reiner would grow uncomfortable. He moved in so carefully and brushed his lips against his comrade’s.

The man leaned in slightly, distracted, and Jens took the opportunity to move Reiner’s hand to his side. His own fingers overlaying Reiner’s, he pressed the palm to his narrow waist, just below his ribcage. Reiner’s fingers curled on their own, his fingernails firm against Jens’ back.

Reiner looked at where his hand was now positioned and Jens could see the surprised slither through his gaze, as if asking _how did it get there?_

But Jens was too close to slow down. His other hand burying itself into Reiner’s hair, fingertips massaging his scale slowly, repositioning his head so he looked at him directly again.

Jens kissed him once – slowly, sparsely, as if his kisses cost too much. For a terrifying moment, when Reiner did not move at all, he thought he had lost him.

And then the man seemed reawakened, his pupils dilating further. Jens rewarded him with another soft kiss, a touch longer this time. At the same time, he leaned his weight further so he placed a little more pressure on Reiner’s groin.

From there, it was all too easy.

He felt the fingers at his waste curl more firmly, he only needed to part his lips and breathe slowly as Reiner’s tongue worked its way between them. _Too easy._

He could feel Reiner stiffening, and knew there was only one final step. This was the most challenging step – because Reiner had to initiate it.

Jens had to be so careful when he let out a little sound from deep within his throat and let his eyes _flutter_ close. And then, he waited for Reiner’s other hand to reach for the untouched side of his waist.

Jens moved like a cat. He uncrossed his leg and deliberately placed one on the other side of the chair, so he was effectively straddling Reiner. He kept the kiss going so to distract from his movements.

He now directly faced Reiner, who seemed unperturbed by the movement, lost in the moment. His legs were on the either side of the man’s thighs. Jens took it to the final stage: both palms flattened against broad shoulders, he neared. When Reiner’s hands travelled to his hips and drew him in, Jens knew Reiner would believe he did it at his own command.

He placed his weight slightly more heavily on the man beneath him, subliminally encouraging those still hands to travel upwards and beneath his shirt. He had untucked it for a reason, after all.

And so it played out beautifully, almost _too perfectly._ Reiner fell into his trap. His palms glided upwards and his warm hands inched themselves above the top of Jens’ trousers and below his shirt. Easy access. They were firm against his bare skin.

This was it: Jens had to do little else. Reiner could not control his own body, and his palms rose so far up he reached the place between Jens’ shoulder blades. He drew the slender figure to him impatiently, deepening the kiss. Jens was too compliant, letting Reiner believe he was in control of his own actions. It was almost pathetic to see.

He buried his fingers in Reiner’s hair, knowing there was nothing he could do now to accidently wake or disturb the man. It was like he was being led in his sleep, hanging himself with rope Jens had given him.

Jens knew he had won when his chest was flat against Reiner’s and the man’s lips kissed excitedly beneath his jaw and down to the hollow of his neck. A low, breathless sound here and there and Reiner was hardening quickly in his trousers.

Part of Jens felt cruel. The man had not yet realised what had happened. He almost did not want to see the embarrassment that was sure to impel him when he came to his senses.

Oh, but it did wonders for his confidence.

He couldn’t resist the smile, instead hiding it in Reiner’s hair. _Too easy._

*

“You’ve unsettled Comrade Reiner.”

Jens looked up quickly, eyes narrowing. Anya sat opposite him in the little café. She insisted they go speak somewhere private.

Unlike Mundt, she seemed to have a taste for the finer things. It was the first meeting place he’d visited that wasn’t cracking or rat-infested. Refreshing.

He took a careful sip of his coffee, relishing the bitter-sweetness on it tongue. “I only did as he asked.”

She let out a pretty laugh. She hadn’t touched her tea yet. “He was not expecting you to be quite so… adept.”

He didn’t reply. She continued. “I’ve spoken to some the higher ups. They’ve unanimously decided we don’t need to wait eight weeks to execute the plan.”

His coffee was promptly forgotten. “How long?”

She finally took a sip from her tea, a satisfied noise coming from the back of her throat. “Three weeks.”

 _Less than a month. Less than a month._ “Isn’t that too soon?” he berated himself for the nervousness permeating his tone. He could not help it. _He was going to kill someone in three weeks._

Anya did not look surprised. “We don’t have to account for two time it would take to teach you Russian-”

“You were going to teach me Russian in _two_ weeks?” He tried not to sound too incredulous.

“Well, only some. The necessities. Because you seem to know what you’re doing, we only need about a week to brief you on what the target likes, sexually.”

Jens was suddenly overcome with a sudden realisation: the plan was flawed. Too flawed. What if he had been completely inept at the language? If he did not know how to smile, to _touch_ , to make someone come undone? That alone had taken him months to learn. More to master. It did not matter how skilled Reiner may have been as a teacher – he could not have taught him in those meagre weeks. And he needed time to learn how to assassinate a man. That seemed a difficult thing to do.

None of it seemed viable. And now, to reduce the timeframe by five whole weeks? Just because he had shown some competence in fluttering his eyelashes?

“That’s not why.” He did not bother playing games. “If I’m going to execute a man for you, I need you to be candid with me Comrade Anya.”

Anya looked at him for a long moment. He did not flinch. “I told them you were clever,” she suddenly seemed amused. She drank the rest of her tea before continuing.

“Your target is an ex-KGB agent.” Jens slid his hands from the table and pressed them against his trousers before they started shaking. “The Soviets have been aware of his plan to defect for three months. We cannot touch him because he is part of a severely interconnected network of defectors.”

“Track him and they will go into hiding.”

“Precisely. However, he is stopping in the East on the way to London. He will be watched by the network operator. We do not know who he is.” _If they catch you, they cannot connect you to the Abteilung._

He forced his voice to cooperate. “He is meeting an English Officer here?”

She nodded. “He can’t get to the West by himself. We know he is going to leave Russia in two weeks. He will stay here for approximately one month until he is cleared to fly to the West.”

“Then I should have about seven weeks before I need to intercept him.”

She sighed tiredly. “That was the plan – but in the three weeks he will be here, he will be in direct contact with his British counterpart. In this case I am inclined to use an Americanism: the sooner the better.”

“Whose plan is this?”

She hesitated. And Jens knew the answer before she spoke.

_Mundt._

*

He spent only another week with Reiner. The man seemed to have developed a severe resentment for him following their first session. And so, he spent the next five days reminding Jens how _incredibly_ inadequate he was.

For the most part, Jens ignored him. He took away the relevant bits and pieces Reiner squeezed in between the reprimands and mockery, replied only with _yes, Sir – no, Sir – I am not certain, Sir._

_Don’t be too forward. It is sloppy – makes you look like a whore. He wouldn’t pay two Deutschmark._

_He’s already got plenty of Russian hookers who will straddle his lap for a bed to sleep in._

_Just because you flutter your eyelashes, he’s not going to grovel at your feet. Put some effort into it._

Jens filed it under constructive criticism and let it slide off his back like water.

He never thought he would look forward to learning how to assassinate a man. But right now, anything that got him away from Reiner seemed so exquisite.

*

“To carry out the execution, you need to aim for any part of the body which handles large volumes of blood _or_ critical brain processes.”

Jens nodded. The knife in his hands was thin, flat. It was designed to fit at the back of his shoe, the top tucked into the cuff of his trousers.

“Attacking the brain stem is the most efficient method of dispatch. It will cause instantaneous death. However, it is often difficult to locate. It also requires you to be in a very flexible position. For your first attempt, you will need to target somewhere more reachable.”

Jens’ mouth was dry. He tasted bile on his tongue.

“The ascending aorta,” the nameless instructor pointed to the centre of his own chest, “is just below the solar plexus. This requires a lot of precision but will result in massive blood loss.”

 _Breathe. For the Party._ He wondered what Mister Smiley would think.

“The brachial artery,” he lifted up one arm, “is accessed by the armpit. This will result in massive blood loss but loss of consciousness will be slower. The femoral artery is located in the thigh. Stabbing either of these areas with precision will result in death within minutes.”

“Otherwise, the carotid artery and jugular vein, located in the neck, is the quickest method. Sever the blood flow here and he’ll be unconscious in ten, fifteen seconds guaranteed. This is difficult though, as he’ll probably see it coming.”

Jens nodded. He had to remind himself to breath. _For the Party._

“We’ll go through each of them in the next few weeks, depending on the position you find yourself in.”

The instructor’s eyes were plastered to Jens’ thin fingers, wrapped uncomfortably around the knife. He sighed. “We’ll also go through how to hold a knife without taking off your fingers.” Jens’ could feel his cheeks reddening. He quickly placed the knife back on the table. Tension seemed to thrum without restraint through his veins. He was not ready for this.

The man seemed to agree. He hesitated before continuing. “How old are you kid?”

“Seventeen,” he replied automatically.

His eyes darkened, although Jens did not understand why. “Hopefully you’ll live long enough to have your first drink, huh?” His chuckle was bitter. Jens did not know how to respond.

*

The night before, Jens found himself in an odd place.

Anya told him to sleep, rest, tomorrow would be daunting enough. And yet he was too restless.

He walked through the afternoon, and late evening found him by the little café he and Mister Smiley had frequented a time or two.

Jens was not sentimental. He had neither the time, nor the patience for nostalgia and melancholy. And yet.

His plan was just to walk past, turn around, go to his dingy apartment and dread tomorrow. He did not expect to see the man himself.

Mister Smiley stepped out of the café just as Jens turned the corner. He stilled, flattening his back against the wall. From here, the Englishman looked the same since the last time he saw him. A bit thinner, perhaps.

He walked quickly through the quiet streets, with purpose. Jens should not have followed him.

He was so inclined to believe Mister Smiley made him feeble – emotional – sentimental. He should have returned, walked back in the other direction. But it seemed, even after all this time, the man was still his weakness.

He did not go far. Jens melted into the shadows where he could, his lithe figure sliding comfortably between the alleyways and shop doors as he followed Mister Smiley.

The man came to a halt only after a few minutes, in front of an unassuming little pub tucked away between two nameless restaurants. The sun had long set, the wind picking up. If it weren’t for his determined stride and the rapid _click_ of his heels against the stone road, Jens would have guessed it was an impulsive choice. But he was going to meet someone. Jens could only wonder who.

He felt strange, uncomfortable even, peaking through the shaky glass windows.

The pub was non-descript. Not at all classy or impressive. It did not look to be Mister Smiley’s scene.

And yet – there he sat, coat bunched up and hanging off the back of his chair. Opposite him another man. From this angle Jens could only make out his broad shoulders and dark hair. Another agent, surely.

As he watched the pair, he was taken aback. They both seemed at ease. Mister Smiley laughed heartedly as they shared a joke, and Jens felt a painful pang in his chest.

He should have left then.

He should not have waited the hour until Mister Smiley left the pub, his companion nursing a new drink. He should have left. He should not have gone in.

And yet.

Quiet Russian music drifted from a crackling radio –

 

_Eto za oknom rassvet, eto goroda vesnoy,_

**_It's dawn outside the window, it is the city in the spring,_ **

_Eto odinokiy svet, zovushchiy za soboy._

**_It is a lonely light, calling for him._ **

 

This was a terrible idea.

And yet.

He timed it perfectly. The man lifted the drink to his lips with a loose hand, composure slumped. He was absent-minded. Perfect.

Jens took a deep breath and walked towards him. The man seemed to take no notice of him. As he neared, he could more clearer make out his features.

He was handsome. His jaw was defined, strong. His eyes were striking. They were a deep brown – warm, determined. His hair was dark and tousled. It looked soft. This was a terrible idea.

He walked right by him and before he could rethink it, bumped into his shoulder.

The tumbler of scotch split all over the table and splattered onto his trousers.

“ _Hey!_ ”

“Oh mein! Es tut mir so leid, ich bin so ungeschickt, ich-” _I’m so sorry – I’m so clumsy –_

“You wanna watch it next-” the man looked up, and promptly stopped speaking.

Jens wore his best _sorry_ mask. It was comprised of diffidence, shyness and a slight reddening of the cheeks to indicate embarrassment. He ran a hand through his hair. “I-”

“Das ist gut. Mach dir keine Sorgen.” _Don’t worry about it._

Fiedler let a small smile play across his lips. The stranger followed the movement with sharp eyes. “I’m sorry,” English, to put him a little more at ease, “let me buy you another one.”

The man was hesitant. He began clearing the scotch off the tabletop with a napkin. He was making a judgement call. “It’s fine, really-”

“Nein, I insist.” He spoke clearly, then cleared his throat as if in embarrassment. “I should have been more careful.” He still seemed hesitate. Jens let his smile widen a touch. “It will at least clear my conscience.”

The man laughed. It was rich, unused. “Alright. You’ll have to join me though.”

_Perfect._

Jens manoeuvred his way quickly to the bar and order two single-malts, although he preferred Steinhager. He returned quickly, sliding between the barstools until he reached the man. He placed a tumbler carefully in front of him and one in front of himself, occupying Mister Smiley’s abandoned seat. Few people busied the pub, filling the dingy space with a mellow level of background conversation.

“Is there a reason you’re drinking alone?”

The man smiled, for the first time. It was oddly endearing. “I was with a friend. He left a little while ago.”

Jens bent his head slightly, so his dark locks slid over one eye. His long fingers curled around the smooth glass. “I’m Jens.” Casual. Friendly. Ease the tension.

“Alec.” Jens wondered if that was his real name. It didn’t really matter.

“What is an Englishmen doing in Berlin at a time like this?” He raised his eyebrow. Alec took a small, controlled sip from his drink.

“Business,” his voice was firm, pleasant to the ears. “Wanted to see the sights too,”

“Mm, yes,” he relished in the warmth of the scotch on his tongue, “the Great Berlin Mudslide, the Great Berlin Puddle and the iconic ration lines.”

Alec laughed pleasantly. He sounded surprised. “I’m English – I haven’t the right to judge.” Jens chuckled – it was a quiet, pretty sound. He could tell by the way Alec’s fingers tightened around his tumbler. “What do you do?”

Jens knew he had to be careful. “I’m a student – law.”

“Your parents must be proud.” It was a simple _congratulations_ , without commitment. Generic. It should not have made him feel so cold.

“Indeed,” he just smiled. Alec seemed to sense his discomfort.

“Have you ever been to Britain?”

Jens licked his lower lip in thought. “As a child. My father was fond of the English.”

Alec snorted. “I couldn’t imagine why,” there was no sarcasm, and that was the joke. Jens laughed and Alec grinned at him. “I don’t usually accept drinks from strangers.”

“I don’t usually spill drinks on strangers.”

“I was the lucky one then?”

Jens leaned back on his stool. His fingers drummed thoughtlessly on the tabletop. “I don’t really know about lucky.” He smiled. “Are you here with family Alec?”

Alec shook his head. “Just me. I can only really enjoy the Great Berline Puddle by myself.”

Jens did not have to force his chuckle. Alec leaned in slightly. “How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“You’re lying,” there was joviality in his voice. But Jens was not naïve. He knew Alec was picking him apart as they spoke.

“You’re right,” he lifted his glass as if in surrender, “I didn’t want to make you feel bad.”

Alec looked affronted. “Excuse me?”

Jens tilted his head, looking the very picture of innocence. “Leaving your cane at home won’t make you younger, Alec.”

Both laughed, and his companion looked genuinely pleased. For some reason, that was a comfort to him.

They kept going – speaking about this and that, sharing half-truths and genuine smiles. Even as their tumblers emptied and half an hour turned to an hour and a half. They joked and Jens did not remember the last time he laughed like this. His curiosity did not have the expected result. He actually enjoyed Alec’s company. The man was a pastiche of sarcasm, stubbornness and self-deprecating wit. Hidden between those broad shoulders, deep inside that muscled chest, Jens knew must have been some Operator. Alec had a fascinating control of language: he told you everything you wanted to hear but none of what he had asked about. He despised the idea of having a personal philosophy. Jens did not feel compelled to lecture him on his unusual perspective – he was content to lean back and laugh as the man rolled his eyes and adopted a grouchy persona. It was endearing. Jens felt himself getting too comfortable. He could not resist. Alec was beautiful.

“Let me get you another drink.”

Jens’ breath seemed to leave him. _Yes,_ he wanted to desperately to say. He had not realised how much he had missed, _craved_ this kind of contact. _Think rationally,_ a voice echoed at the back of his head. “I…”

Alec seemed to sense his hesitation. Jens knew he could say yes: they would drink, laugh, and at the end of the night, they would make love. He would leave before the sun rose, as if he had never been there.

But he also knew that he liked Alec. They would drink, laugh, make love, and he would risk forming an emotional attachment to another Imperialist Officer. He had to remind himself of what Alec was. That none of this was real – this happiness – it was a construct he formulated as a result of a rash decision. On an impulse. It was not real. He would not make the same mistakes, not matter how desperately he wanted to kiss Alec in that moment.

He did not have to fake the sadness that washed over his features. _Come to your senses Jens. You’re going to kill a man tomorrow._

Alec sensed the sadness, and Jens could see the understanding filter through his dark eyes. It made him want to say _yes_ even more.

“It’s okay. I understand.”

He should have left then. Instead, Jens just shook his head. “Have you ever done something… morally questionable?” He looked up, his eyes piercing. Alec seemed taken aback. “For… for reasons that could justify it.”

“A bad something?” he nodded mutely. Alec looked contemplative. “If it benefits others – helps others – I think it can be justified.”

Jens nodded. _For the Party._ He stood. “Goodbye Alec.”

His companion smiled at him. It was no façade. “I’ll see you around Jens.”

When Jens stepped out into the cold, even his coat could not seem to warm him.

*

Jens’ back thudded against the wooden door of the hotel room. Alexander Alexei was an impatient man.

Jens could not quell the nervous tension which flowed in his veins, the fear which pervaded the deepest corners of his mind. _I’m going to kill him._

It did not show. Of course it did not.  Alexei was happy in his ignorance, content to bury his face in the hollow of Jens’ neck and hook his cold fingers in the waist of the boy’s trousers as he trapped him between his broad figure and the door.

Jens played his part to textbook perfection. Not that it took very much in the dark of the night club - the black leather hugged his legs tightly, the collar of his shirt unbuttoned to tease the slightest sliver of pale skin. All he had to do was an ‘accidental’ brush here and there, bending a little bit too far onto the bar top as he ordered a Steinhager, wetting his bottom lip and watching the Russian fidget as his mouth dried. He was almost as easy as Reiner.

Within an hour he had his slender arms around the man’s shoulders, on his tiptoes, forcing himself to calm as the target pushed their hips together. The knife was heavy by his ankle.

“Kak prekrasno,” _So beautiful,_ “Kak prekrasno.” His voice was heavy and muddled with the drinks Jens had bought him.

He released a breathless moan as Alexei’s hands found the back of his leather trousers eagerly. He could feel the man’s desire swelling against his hip. He felt nauseas. He needed to get them away from the door before Alexei decided this was taking too long. Jens could not risk the blood splattering beneath the doorframe or soaking the carpet on the other side.

And he did, greedy fingers suddenly parting more of his buttons. “Krovat,” _Bed._

Alexei did not hesitate. He let Jens kiss him to the other side of the room. He did not close his eyes, so Jens had to carefully musk the fear in his gaze with _want_. His heart beat wildly in his chest, and he knew Alexei could feel the rapid thumping _._ He let him believe it was desire.

The back of Alexei’s knees bumped against the edge of the mattress and he let go of Jens to crawl backwards. His back flattened against the wooden headboard.

Jens followed him, knees and palms flat against the mattress.

_Aim for the solar plexus. lower centre of the chest. Just below the ribcage. One straight, swift motion. Lean back first – slightly – build the necessary momentum._

Alexei’s eyes seemed to devour him. He tried to suffocate the nervous energy vibrating beneath the fragile layers of skin.

_You will need to pierce four layers of skin and hard muscle. The force comes from the shoulders._

He crawled into the man’s lap and kissed him passionately. Alexei’s large hands tangled themselves in Jens’ hair. The younger man leaned back ever so slightly and bent his leg towards his arm.

_The most effective position to execute the move: directly facing your target._

“ _Alex…_ ” The Russian moaned into his mouth in response, his eyes fluttering closed.

_Try to level your heights so you can more precisely reach the designated area of the chest without lifting your arms too high. This is to ensure your momentum is not disturbed._

He prepared himself. _You’ve done this once already. This should not be different._

_Now._

Jens deftly grabbed the thin blade from his shoe – like he had practiced a thousand times before. He leaned back just a touch – like he had practiced a thousand times before. He focused the force from his shoulders. He pulled his arm back and drove it forward swiftly.

He should have felt resistance as the metal pierced the muscled chest. He should have felt Alexei gasp into his lips and shudder as his mind tried to process that he had been stabbed. He should have tumbled backwards, blood dying his shirt red. He should have lost consciousness within minutes, too weak to move. It should have been over quickly. Alexei should not have seen it coming.

Jens did not know if he was too slow. If he shifted too quickly. If his fear and uncertainty could be felt through their kiss.

But Alexei opened his eyes, and he did see it coming.

Inches from this chest, _inches_. Jens felt a strong hand wrap around his wrist. He saw the surprise in Alexei’s eyes, watched as the shock turned in to anger.

There was a split second where time seemed to still. And then, like a crackle of a broken radio, everything came a life with a sudden _spark._

_“Vy-”_

He tried to move, slide from the ex-KGB’s lap and onto the floor, but the man was too quick, too powerful. His fingers _squeezed_ and the blood seemed to stop flowing to Jens’ fingers. He could not stop the cry passing his lips.

He aimed for Alexei’s eyes with his unused hand, but he caught it mid-motion and _bent_.

Jens heard his wrist snap before he felt it, and the pain took his breath away. It was enough. His grip loosened around the knife and Alexei did not hesitate in pushing him flat on his back. Their faces were only inches apart.

He thrashed with his legs but the Russian was too heavy above him. He could barely move. The man forced Jens’ wrist towards his face, knife nearing his eye quickly. Jens pushed back, trying to move the knife back towards Alexei, but it was no use.

He had not felt terror like this in such a long time. He was going to die. He was –

He raised his head in a jarring movement. Pain exploded across his temple as he slammed it against Alexei’s forehead. He gasped, his grip loosening for a moment.

Jens thrashed again, and the knife slipped from their fingers, clattering loudly against the wooden floor. He was quick in driving the lower part of his palm against Alexei’s nose, barely processing the _crunch_ of bones beneath his hand.

“ _Gah-_ ” the Russian gasped, leaning back to cradle his broken nose. Jens struggled from beneath him and off the bed.

Pain sparked at his knees from the impact against the floor, but he took no notice of it, making a beeline towards the knife on the other side of the room. He desperately reached for it. He was so close.

Hands wrapped around his ankles. “ _Nein!_ ”

Alexei flipped him onto his back and dragged Jens towards him. Jens tried flutily to kick at his chest - his head - his neck but it was _useless._ The man looked possessed, face red, veins bulging around his eyes.

“I’ll _kill_ you-” spittle flew from his lips as he dragged Jens beneath him. His fist struck Jens’ mouth with such ferocity it filled with blood. And again. And again.

Jens couldn’t breathe. His good hand blindly scrambled for the knife just out of his reach. Alexei seemed content to let him: he was going to kill him with his bare hands.

The Russian fisted his fingers in Jens’ dark locks and slammed his head into the floor.

“St-” He couldn’t cry out around the blood in his mouth, splattering across his lips. Alexei slammed his head again and the pain made Jens blind. He could feel Alexei pulling his hair from its roots, could feel hot blood stream down his forehead and lather the back of his head.

He couldn’t see, hear, sense anything beyond the agony exploding in his head. His teeth sunk into his tongue and he choked on the blood in his throat. He felt his legs grow numb beneath the Russian’s weight. A severe exhaustion began to crawl into his limbs and settle. He was going to die.

_The knife. The knife. The knife… the…_

Darkness began to eat at his vision. His fingers moved on their own accord, his feverish search for the weapon slowing. And then the ex-KGB fisted both hands in his shirt and hefted his upper body off the floor.

Jens could barely see through the red and the agony. Alexei held him up with one hand and fisted the other.

He was going to die.

He fingers were beginning to slow, to become lax. And then –

_There._

He felt something cold at his finger tips and madly scrambled for it. He couldn’t see.

A sharp pain flashed through his hand as the blade bit into his palm. With blood-slicked fingers Jens kept _trying_ desperately, until he found the handle and wrapped his fingers around it best he could.

Alexei’s fist was coming down towards his face and with the last of his remaining energy, Jens drove the knife upwards.

The metal pierced right through the hollow of Alexei’s neck, severing the jugular vein. He faltered, eyes comically wide. His fist trembled but he remained holding Jens’ up as blood flowed from the wound like water through a broken dam. It covered his arms and painted Jens red. It felt hot on his face.

He dropped the younger man and clawed for a moment at his neck and Jens could almost see Christa. The same fear, panic, pervaded Alexei’s vision as he grasped at the knife. It only lasted a second or two, but the gurgling seemed to echo forever as he drowned in his own blood.

He fell on top on Jens, the knife sliding from his neck with a hollow squelch.

The silence was overwhelming, suffocating. It permeated every corner of the room. It was heavy, uncomfortable, unnatural. Jens could not move.

He just tried to breathe.

_Breathe._

_Breathe._

_Breathe._

Tears blurred his vision and slid down the side of his face. He felt feint, sick. The blood was still hot on his skin, in his mouth. A sob clawed its way from the pit of his chest and through his bruised lips. He couldn’t. He couldn’t. The urge to laugh seemed to suddenly swell in inside him. He released a shuddering breath, the laughter tasting bitter and uncomfortable on his tongue. Jens did not feel anything in those terrible moments. He felt so, so numb. He lifted his broken wrist and laid his palm on his mouth. _Do not cry._

Jens did not know how long he just lay there. He knew if he did not push Alexei off him soon he would lose consciousness. The corpse was heavy on his chest, and breathing was becoming more and more difficult.

_Get up._

He closed his eyes for a quick moment.

_Get up._

He pushed the Russian off of him with his legs, shaking the pins and needles from his calves and feet. The body rolled lifelessly, and as it came to rest beside him, mouth parted, eyes wide open, dyed in red, Jens was struck with the truth of what he had just done.

He killed him.

He killed a man.

Yes. He had done so before. But it was different. He could not control himself.

But Alexei…

Jens looked away. He stared at the plain ceiling for a long moment.

_Get up._

It was difficult. He could not use either of his arms. His left wrist was beginning to swell, thrumming alive with a terrible pain. He could not feel his right hand. He did not have time to be concerned.

With resolve he did not imagine he could muster, he forced his head off the cold floorboards. And promptly threw up to the side. Blood mixed with the bile.

He cradled his wrist to his chest and held his bloodied palm to his stomach. The pain in his head came back with a vengeance. It was all-encompassing, deafening, blinding. He shut his eyes desperately, the ambient lights of the room suddenly too bright.

A voice at the back of his head flagged _concussion,_ and a terrible one at that. He needed help. A wave of dizziness settled uncomfortably and he wretched violently. Even breathing hurt.

Jens knew head wounds bled a lot, but he imagined he should be concerned. His shirt had gone from white to red. His trousers stuck to his legs with sweat. He did not know where Alexei’s blood ended and his began. _Calm down._

He struggled again, and after a few minutes he was able to better straighten himself. He was shaking violently. It was so cold.

The logical part of Jens notified him it was shock. His breathing was shallow, rapid. His heartbeat seemed to palpitate, his heart threatening to beat right through his ribcage. His skin was clammy. He was afraid. Yes, it definitely felt like shock.

 _Get up. Get up Jens._ The voice sounded uncomfortably like Mister Smiley.

He could not make his legs carry his weight. His movements were painfully slow as he shifted onto his knees. _Get to the bed._

He crawled on his knees to the edge of the mattress, all the while his head threatened to tumble from his shoulders. He could barely see: the tears and blood desperately blurred his vision. He tried to wipe his eyes with the back of his sliced hand, but it did not seem to help.

He flattened his forearms on the mattress and heaved himself up with a groan. It took all his strength to sit on the it.

He did not dare lay back. He knew he would not be able to get up again.

He took a deep breath. _Get up, Jens._ He so desperately wanted to sleep.

He began to inch himself off the mattress when a noise pierced the deafening silence –

Keys.

Keys.

Outside the door, there was a jingle of _keys._

He twisted so quickly he had to physically stop himself from retching. Someone was unlocking the door from the outside.

Jens laughed. It was a terrible, frightening, desperate sound. After everything. This was how it would end.

He could feel the hysteria edging in. It came second to the overwhelming fear which stood high on the crooked pedestal.

He glanced around. The room was a mess. There was a shower of blood on the bedsheets, a puddle on the floor, and the corpse of a middle-aged ex-KGB with a hole in his neck. There was a bloody knife and there was Jens.

The fear impelled him. The knob began to turn. Jens did not know exactly what it was he feared: it was not death. Perhaps it was failure. Knowing after all he had survived, all the death – terror – _anguish_ – which seemed to permeate his entire, pathetic life – this was how it would end. After his parents and Christa and Mister Smiley and selling himself to strangers and the man in the alleyway – this was how it would end. There would no Party. No study. He would not lead the revolution. He would lose. He was going to lose.

Jens stood, and it took all his will power not to keel over. With strength he did not know he had, he bent his knees and grabbed the knife with his broken hand. He kept his wrist still. His fingers worked well enough. He stumbled across the room as the door opened, leaning heavily against the wall to keep himself up.

He had no time to run, no time to hide. This was it. If he was found out,  they would not connect him to the Abteilung or the Party. He would stand trial for murder, and he would spend the rest of his life in a grey two-by-two cell.

As the door creaked open, Jens did not know if he was going to stab himself or the stranger.

It could be over now. One precise movement against his own throat and he would bleed out in seconds, like Alexei was supposed to. He would see his parents and Christa again. He did not have to be alone.

Perhaps, it was okay to fail.

A figure stepped in from the corridor.

This was it.

Jens breathed in a shuddering breath. Little else seemed to matter.

_This was it -_


	3. its hour come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was something jarring about his words. The boy was brilliant, ruthless. He was ready to bury his humanity so far from the light to achieve his goals. His emotions would not inconvenience him. He would be devastating. 
> 
> And yet, Leamas could not imagine an outcome where Smiley did not let Jens go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this story does not want to end  
> it is crying to have a short epilogue. ergo, i must oblige
> 
> don't know how i feel about this chapter but much love pls enjoy

 

Smiley should not have said yes.

There were a million, conceivable, acceptable reasons as to why he could have simply said _no._

And yet.

 _“It’ll be an hour at most, George.”_ Control’s voice would not leave his head. _“An hour. Just meet – debrief – leave. You’ll never see him again.”_

He resisted the urge to sigh. He could never say no to Control.

The hotel was in a carefully undisclosed place of the bustling city, towering above the myriad of high-class night clubs and brothels. Ah, yes – they called them escorts here. Alexei seemed to have impeccable taste and little fear for someone who was a defector running from the Soviets.

Smiley’s Oxfords sank into the plush carpet, his determined stride drawing him right down the corridor of the sixth floor. Room 26…. 27…. 28-

He almost dreaded opening the door. He had not called Alexei to warn him of his visit, too afraid the hotels lines would be tapped. Knowing the ex-KGB, he would probably have some girl or boy in there. Smiley ran a hand through his hair. The man liked them young. Smiley did not want to spend too long thinking about it. His thoughts on Alexei did not matter.

He finally arrived in front of the glistening golden 30. He didn’t bother knocking, fully aware the man would have ignored him. Instead, he pulled the copy of the key from his pocket and jammed it into the knob.

It was eerily quiet. He had not pushed the door open, but no sound seemed to seep from the other side. Not whispers, not high-pitched giggles. Not even Alexei’s baron voice echoed.

He pulled his pistol from insider his coat and opened the door with one hand.

For a moment, he could not breathe.

The coppery stench filtered through his nostrils and he squashed the urged to gag. It reminded him of – _focus._ The ambient lighting was soft and bounced of the velvet bedsheets and rug, and the brilliant splatter of blood seemed to adorn every surface. Furniture was overturned, the mattress hanging half-off the bed. _How quickly did they get him?_ Smiley adjusted quickly and turned, lifting his pistol and stepping completely into the room.

He glanced up, and promptly lost his voice.

He was expecting Alexei’s corpse. He was not expecting the bloodied and trembling boy using the wall as a lifeline.

_Jens._

He couldn’t find the words. The boy looked a mess: his lips and chin and forehead were red with blood, purple blossoming starkly against one pale cheek. Bright red seemed to make up half-his face, the worse streaming from a cut above his temple where his hair was brutally yanked from its roots. _Concussion_ , a voice in his head echoed. Beneath the red his skin looked hauntingly translucent, like no life thrummed in his veins. His eyes were wide as he blinked owlishly at Smiley, who could barely look beyond the horror story that made up his face.

And his –

Oh Jesus.

Smiley could not tell what colour his shirt was before it became red. The skin stretching over his exposed collar bone glistened with sweat. He looked about to keel over.

Smiley slowly closed the door with the back of his foot. “Jens.”

His eyes tracked the tremors which pervaded his slender shoulders down to where his fingers were weakly wrapped around the hilt of a thin blade. Jens’ other hand hung uselessly at his side, and Smiley just noticed the eerily quiet _drip-drip-drip_ as blood pattered down from one long finger onto the timber floorboards.

“Jens,” he tried to organise his thoughts, suppress the tidal wave of fear and confusion and anxiety which threatened to overwhelm him. _Calm down, Smiley._ At the back of his mind, the fractured bits of this sordid puzzle began to piece themselves together. He slowly returned his gun to inside his coat, his palms slick with sweat.

“Jens,” the boy blinked at him, and slowly, Smiley could see the realisation dawning behind glossy eyes. _Shock._

“Mister Smiley?” Smiley could not help the flinch. He sounded so _young_.

He drew in a slow breath, watching as red dripped afresh from Jens’ lips. “Yes, Jens. It’s me.” _It’s me. God, it’s me._

Jens drew in a shuddering breath. He glanced at the corpse by his feet, almost unseeing. “You’re him.”

Smiley took a step closer, silent. His hands were still by his side, approaching Jens like Ann used to approach wild rabbits.

“Him?”

“The…” Jens looked at him again, and Smiley could see the coherence slowly build behind his eyes. His breathing was still uneven. At this rate, he was going to pass out. “The Operator. His. His – _someone_ – that he was meeting.”

Smiley nodded. “Yes,” he was about a metre from the younger man. “Jens, I need you to breathe in deeply, okay?”

His voice was as soothing as he could have made it, his posture for approaching shock victims text-book perfect. But when Jens noticed just how close he was, he startled, his back thudding against the wall. His knuckles were now white around the hilt of the knife.

_He thinks I’m going to hurt him._

Smiley stilled, feeling his heart fracture between his ribs. He wondered if Jens could hear it.

“Jens, Jens, you need to let me help you.”

The boy narrowed his gaze and Smiley could picture the cogs and wheels turning in his head, the _sense_ trying to break through the haze of pain and incoherency. He wiped at the blood obscuring his vision with one hand, but it seemed to stream down his skin even quicker. Jens held the knife dangerously close to his own eye as he pressed a set of fingers into his forehead, as if trying to smother some terrible pain behind the hollows of his eyes.

“Jens. Let me help you.” _Patience, George. Patience._ “Drop the knife, Jens.”

“No you’re-” he spoke around a mouth full of blood, and Smiley forced the sickness back down his throat. “How do I know you’re not going to-” he seemed to change train of thought mid-way. His senses were coming back to him. Smiley was terribly aware of how perilous head wounds could be. “No.”

Smiley kept his voice was controlled and firm as possible. “Do you possibly think I would hurt you?” When Jens did not respond, desperation began to edge in the corners of his mind. “Do you think _I could_?”

“I-” Jens looked so painfully overwhelmed in that moment, Smiley felt his protective urges simmer beneath his fingertips. He wanted so terribly to reach out and touch Jens in that moment. To comfort –

“I killed him.” His voice was so quiet, so small. Like he was still processing what had happened.

“It’s okay, Jens-”

“It’s _not,_ ” there was an urgency lacing his words together. He closed his eyes for a long moment. It felt like an eternity. Smiley knew he was close enough to catch him should he fall. “You’re – you’re MI5 and I’m – why are you _helping_ me?”

The words seemed physically agonising to say, but Jens seemed to be able to piece his thoughts together, which was exceptionally reassuring. The relief removed some tension from Smiley’s shoulders.

“This isn’t about politics, Jens.” The boy was still. “ _Let me help you_ ,” Smiley could hear the desperation in his own voice. “Trust me.”

“Why?” It was breathless. _Give me a reason,_ he seemed to ask. Smiley stood on the edge of a very sharp knife.

“Because I’m your friend.” The abyss widened. Smiley was still.

Jens stared at him, for a long hard minute. Just stared. His eyes seemed to pierce right through Smiley, and he could see the rationality clearing his gaze. Even in his condition Jens seemed able to assess his situation, and Smiley could see the tell-tale signs of contemplation in the furrowed brow and the way his teeth sunk unconsciously into a bloodied lip.  Smiley’s breath was stuck in his throat, the pervasive silence uncomfortably loud in the broken room.

“Okay.” Smiley could have sighed with relief. Jens did not attempt to nod, and Smiley knew he was slowly pushing aside the irrationality and distress which permeated his thoughts.

“Okay.”

Jens took a step forward, and abruptly collapsed.

Smiley was prepared, his hands suddenly full of bloodied clothes and jutting bones. The knife clattered loudly against the floor. “Hey,” he slid a hand around Jens’ waist and gently pulled a thin arm over his shoulders. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.” He didn’t know if the boy heard him, too focused on putting one foot in front of the other. His legs looked ready to give in again. “Easy does it,” they moved slowly to the bed, Smiley careful not to jar the younger man. He seemed to weigh nothing. It was frightening.

Smiley sat him gently on the edge of the bed and quickly readjusted the mattress before kneeling in front of him. His knees creaked as this hit the rug.

“Jens, I think you have a concussion and you’re showing signs of shock. I need you to tell me where you’re hurt, okay?”

No response.

“Jens,” he tried again, “Du musst mir sagen, wo du verletzt bist.”

A moment.

“Ja. Ja. Okay.” They boy released a slow breath. “I… I definitely have a concussion, it’s from-” he motioned to the back of his head, and Smiley berated himself for not noticing the stream of blood at the back of his neck. He moved onto the bed.

It was concerning, to say the least. Smiley was well aware of how much head wounds bled, but the red seemed to lather and plaster Jens’ dark locks together. He pulled a thin flashlight from his coat and with his gentlest touch, he prodded the area to inspect the wound.

Jens hissed, but did not speak. He was still trembling. He had not passed out yet, which was promising, but it was not much. The back of his head felt inflamed and tender, like it had been slammed more than once against the wall or the floorboards. _Oh Jens._

“Ist es schlimm?” _Is it bad?_

The words were so low Smiley almost missed them. He tried to sound as reassuring as he could. “There’s a lot of blood, but that’s normal for headwounds. It looks like a common split and you haven’t passed out.” _Yet._

Jens didn’t respond, so Smiley knelt in front of him again. “Where else?”

Jens looked like he was about to shake his head but thought better of it. He gently lifted both hands.

His left wrist was bent unnaturally, a swelling building beneath the layers of skin, and there was deep gash along the palm of his right hand. Brilliant.

Smiley gently turned Jens’ right hand in one palm, careful not the jar the wound. The slice ran from the wedge between his thumb and forefinger down to the start of his wrist. Blood was beginning to crust over the edges. _Stiches._

His left wrist was simply a clean break, the type they were taught in second year self-defence to momentarily shock or disarm an opponent. Alexei had not forgotten his training.

“Anywhere else?” He wanted to desperately to throw a blanket over Jens’ shoulders and drive him to the nearest emergency room. He also knew how disastrous that would be. _Keep your head._

“Irgendwo anders?” He repeated.

“Nein,” Jens voice was more controlled know, like he was rising from underwater.

Smiley shook his head, “He didn’t hit you with anything else? Anywhere else? Around the abdomen, the chest?”

Jens sighed. “No, just,” he motioned his to bloodied face, “my best asset.”

Smiley could not help the bitter laugh that bubbled in his throat. The incredulity of the entire situation seemed to dawn on him. Jens killed Alexei. Jens _killed_ Alexei. He was helping Jens. He was helping a Communist, a member of the Abteilung who had killed the defector he was responsible for.

He would have laughed more, if he did not focus so strongly on keeping the tears from blurring his vision. He briefly wondered what Control would think of the situation.

“I’m going to go the bathroom to get some towels, okay?”

“Ja,” Jens seemed to revert back to German when he was tired. He had twice before. Smiley nodded aimlessly and stood.

“Don’t-” move? Leave? Bleed out? He felt ridiculous for a moment. “Ja.”

He found a few small towels on the towel rack and some bandages in a plastic white cabinet. He briefly inched his way into the connecting kitchen and briefed a sigh of relief when he found some ice.

Depositing the items on the bed beside Jens, Smiley fetched a bowl from the kitchen shelf and shoved it under the tap, watching as the water splashed playfully against the coloured plastic.

He couldn’t take care of this alone. If he had been in the position to, Smiley knew Jens would have vanished. Instead, he had a distraught teenager with a headwound, and a corpse to take care of.

A distraught teenager who was a Communist spy. Who stabbed a man in the neck. A man who was an ex-KGB agent. Who Smiley was responsible for.

 _Huh_. Smiley never imagined he would be the one committing treason.

He pushed all thoughts from his head and started afresh: _think rationally, George._

There was no doubt in his mind he had to help Jens. No matter the cost.

That frightened him.

He also knew he couldn’t help the boy alone, and that frightened him even more. Smiley knew what he had to do, no matter how bitter the idea tasted on his tongue.

He returned to Jens with the bowl full of warm water. He had not moved, his hands still in his lap. _He’s just a boy._

Smiley sat next to him, avoiding the splatter of blood on the bedsheets. He busied himself wrapping some ice in one of the cheap towels. He pressed it against Jens’ broken wrist and carefully stabilised it with a bandage so the pressure was maintained while he worked. Jens did not look away from him. Smiley avoided his gaze, feeling too anxious, uncertain, afraid of what Jens might find if he looked into his eyes.

He worked on the wound at the back of his head carefully. With a towel dipped into warm water, he gently cleaned the blood away, forcing himself to ignore the way the white towel quickly became red. It was a slow process, but it took his mind away from the sheer insanity of what he was doing. _He’s a Communist Spy for the GDR. He’s a Communist Spy for the GDR. He killed Alexei. He –_

_He is just a boy._

The bleeding had slowed as Smiley finished, and he refocused his efforts on the cut on Jens’ temple. He a carefully fastened a bandage beneath Jens’ dark locks, firm around his temples and the back of his head.

For a moment, he was back on the battlefield, his steady hands wrapping another bullet graze. Only, it was a lot quieter. He did not know which he favoured more.

Smiley didn’t prioritise cleaning the blood off Jens’ face. It was beginning to dry on his pale skin and he knew it must have itched like hell, but his companion didn’t say a thing. Instead, he moved onto the cut on Jens’ palm. It had already been left too long. What little medical knowledge Smiley screamed: _sepsis_. He dipped another towel in the warm water and began to clean the cut, Jens releasing a low breath as the white towel became pink.

“I don’t have anything to stitch it with, so my mediocre bandaging will have to do for now.”

“No stitches.”

He glanced up. Jens looked adamant.

“I would have to explain stitches.” Smiley did not reply.

He tried to wrap the thin hand best he could without causing more damage, trying to pull details from the first-aid classes they received before the war. Jens’ fingers felt exceptionally delicate between his. “Are you okay?”

It sounded ridiculous even to his own years. Jens lifted one eyebrow.

“Just peachy.” He should not have found the comment as funny as he did.

There was silence for the several minutes he took to finish. Jens looked lost in thought. Smiley used the time to calm his raging mind.

He had to replace the water when he realised he couldn’t see to the bottom of the bowl.

Smiley was running out of clean towels when he started to gently wipe the blood crusted over Jens eye and around his chin. His companion tensed, unused to the contact.

He smiled sadly. Smiley wondered if anyone had touched Jens like this since his parents died. Gently. Without expectation.

“I need to make a call,” he finally focused on the boy. “I can’t make it from here.” _They’ll be tapped by the GDR,_ goes unsaid.

“Okay.”

He released a defeated sigh. Smiley wondered if Jens believed he was calling the authorities, the establishment, the little people on their high chairs puppeteering them from above. If he believed Smiley was going to contact MI5.

He left the room knowing Jens would be there when he came back.

*

Leamas did not have many friends.

There were men and women he trusted with his life, sure. Who he knew would protect his back in a firefight. Who he could blink Morse code to from a cell and know will break him out. There were people he might have loved once. His wife. His children. Agents. Colleagues. Partners.

But he did not have many friends.

So when Smiley rang in the middle of the night, Leamas could not say no.

The telephone in his distraught little apartment screamed, and Leamas was sorely tempted to throw his shoe at the receiver.

“ _Alec.”_

“George?”

_“Alec, I need your help.”_

“What’s wrong?”

 _“It’s-”_ hesitation. _“Alexei.”_

Something told Alec it was not Alexei at all. “They got him?”

_“Yes. I’m at The Roarhaven. Floor six room thirty. Can you-”_

“On my way.”

 _“Alec.”_ He paused, phone half way from his ear. “ _Bring first aid supplies.”_

He drew in a sharp breath. “Are you-”

_“No. Not me.”_

The line went dead, and the silence imparted Leamas with a peculiar type of dread.

*

The Roarhaven was as overdone and flashy as ever. Leamas felt uncomfortable with his brogues sinking into the plush carpet, unassuming duffle bag hanging off one broad shoulder.

He reached the room and knocked twice quickly, waited a second, and knocked a final time. There was an ominous creak, and Smiley’s withering face greeted him from the darkness. His brows furrowed, lips pursed tightly together. The dread grew tenfold.

Smiley ushered him in without a word.

The room took some adjusting to. It was a mess, messier than an ordinary GDR job. Blood had collected in puddles across the floorboards and dried into the rug. Alexei’s mouth hung open in a silent scream where he lay lifeless. There was a thin, silver blade by Smiley’s feet, and behind him –

“Poppycock.”

On the bed, a white bandage spotted with red was wrapped beneath a mess of dark locks. His skin looked translucent under the light, the hollows of his eyes accentuating the thinness of his face. He stared right at Leamas over Smiley’s shoulder, a look of surprise clouding his vision.

“Jens.”

Smiley’s eyes widened. He turned back to the boy and then quickly back to Alec. It was comical.

“You know-”

“George. Don’t tell me this is him.” The boy hadn’t spoken. “George.” There was warning in his tone.

“How do you know Jens?”

Leamas could have screamed. On the bed, Jens tilted his head slightly and made a non-committed noise.

“I bought him a drink,” Jens replied, as if that explained everything.

Smiley huffed impatiently, “Alec-”

“He spilled scotch on me at our pub after you left.” Leamas inched further into the room, eyeing the slender figure on the bed suspiciously. “Great act. Never suspected a thing.” Something uncomfortable simmered under his skin. It felt suspiciously like hurt. He squashed it with an impatient sigh of his own and turned back to Smiley. “He killed Alexei?”

“ _He-_ ” Jens pressed two fingers of his bandaged hand into his forehead, “is right here.” The boy rolled his eyes, and spoke with a destructive sarcasm. “Very astute deduction.”

Leamas felt annoyed. He knew he had every right. “I’m _sorry_. I almost overlooked you, being the same colour as the man you murdered.”

Jens’ lips twisted and Leamas could see spots of blood –

“ _Enough._ ” Smiley’s voice was sharp. He sounded weary. “Leamas – just – just fix up his hands, please, while I take care of the body. No stitches.”

He took a deep breath to calm his fraying nerves, and dumped the duffle bag unceremoniously on the floor. _Calm down, Alec._ He could not help the feeling of acute betrayal which heavied his shoulders. He was used to being lied to. It should not have hurt so much.

He focused on the bag. Kneeling, he pulled a set of plastic wrappings out and passed them to Smiley’s waiting hand. He rummaged through for the first-aid kit he had packed, and made his way to the boy on the bed.

Up close, Jens looked even worst, kind of like a crime scene. Beneath all the blood, Leamas could see how he was dressed. How no teenager should be dressed.

He sat beside him and opened his palm. Jens glanced away from him for a moment, at Smiley, and Leamas could not help but admire the way his skin seemed to glow in its paleness, the curve of his long eyelashes above sculpted cheekbones, the smooth hollow of a slender neck. Even like this, Leamas found him beautiful.

Jens did not seem to notice his contemplations, and the Briton could not be gladder. The boy hesitated before placing his bandaged hand in Leamas’ palm. His fingers were long and slender, the fine bones feeling too delicate in Leamas’ hold. There was blood crusted beneath his fingernails. It was jarring.

He refocused, gently undoing Smiley’s rushed work. “Do you always seduce men before you kill them?”

Smiley’s ruffling paused for a moment as the air grew dry. Leamas focused on gently peeling the blood-soaked bandages without causing too much damage.

He could almost hear the bitter smile. “I did not have to try very hard.” The disembodied voice was too disillusioned. Leamas forced him to avoid looking at how tightly the leather hugged Jens’ long legs, the way it seemed to wrap around his jutting bones and narrow hips perfectly. Low enough beneath his shirt to _tease_.

He began to clean out the wound with rubbing alcohol. Jens seemed to focus all his efforts on breathing through the stinging.

“No. You wouldn’t.” Leamas’ voice was hard when he spoke. “That’s what they use you for then? Whoring yourself to men three times your age?”

Delicate fingers curled in his hands, and Leamas knew it was not from the pain.

“You didn’t seem to mind.”

Leamas drew in a deep breath, head snapping up. He briefly wondered if Smiley was paying any attention to them. “You-”

“I didn’t lie to you.” Those eyes. Leamas could have lost himself in them. Dark, intense, intelligent. Jens was devouring him with his gaze, deconstructing his very being, pulling him apart with few words.

“You didn’t _lie_ to me?” There was too much hurt in his voice. He paused, about to wrap the new bandage around the bloody gash.

Jens shook his head very gently. “No.”

The anger was back again, but Leamas was sure not too press too hard when he started wrapping. He wondered why Smiley didn’t want him to stitch the wound. “That’s rich.”

“I didn’t. I told the truth. Not all of it, but-”

He briefly wondered why Jens felt the need to justify himself. He huffed with disbelief. “You expect me to believe you’re a student then? That your discomfort was _real_ when I mentioned your parents?”

Smiley seemed to draw in a deep breath from where he was, but he did not stop. “Yes,” Jens replied simply. Leamas could not see the lie in his gaze. “In fact, Alec…” he released a soft breath. “You’re not angry at _me_ , at _this._ Because I killed your defector friend.” There was a disturbed lightness to his voice. Leamas finished his immaculate bandaging. “You’re angry because I played you.”

“ _Jens-_ ” Smiley called, but it was too late.

Leamas had one hand tight around the boy’s good wrist. “Is that so?”

Jens leaned in, ever-so-slightly. He smiled, and Leamas could see specks of red where the blood had dried on his lips. “It _is_ ,” he whispered. It was like the pained boy had disappeared, like he had been some façade to be shed. Jens – the Jens on the bed beside him – had terrible, cold eyes. A quiet smile, a twisted version of the one he had given Leamas at the pub.

That had been a façade too. He wondered how many masks the boy had. He felt dangerous.

Jens tilted his head a little further. It must have hurt, with his wound, but no pain flashed across his features. Leamas held his breath. “You’re angry,” he spoke like he had Leamas all figured out, “because you fell _so easily._ Because we spoke for an hour and you wore your heart on your sleeve.”

The smile grew, and Leamas felt sick. Smiley had stopped moving altogether.

“Poor disillusioned Alec who was so, so terribly _alone._ You wanted me, Alec. You wanted me to _stay._ And it was _so easy_ playing you.” He huffed, ‘ _You’ll have to join me though-”_ the mockery hit Leamas right between his ribs, “What would you have done, had I stayed?”

The question occupied the heavy space between them. Leamas felt dizzy, Jens’ words seared into his mind. _What would you have done?_

“Oh,” such a pretty sound. Leamas wondered how it could come from such a dark place. Jens leaned in a little bit closer, and Leamas could see the lines of his slender neck, reaching to his collarbone and further down. He yearned to touch. Leamas tried to look away, suddenly so profoundly aware of how closely they sat together. “Oh Alec,” that dangerous smile again – “I could have been so much crueller…” The words took Leamas’ breath away. He could not escape that suffocating gaze.

“I could have stayed, you know. Had that drink. We would have _laughed_ ,” there was an unnatural cheeriness in those words. Jens’ smile did not disappear. “You would have told me about yourself and I would have perched my elbows on the bar top and you would have watched the way I fluttered my eyelashes.”

Leamas growled, “ _Shut up._ ”

Jens laughed a pleasant, lovely laugh. A shiver curled at the base of his spine. “I would have let you take me home. To your sad little flat,” with every word he neared an inch and Leamas was frozen. “I would have let you kiss me. Taste the scotch on my tongue,” he licked his lower lip and Leamas could not help but follow the movement with his eyes. “We might have made it to the bed-” Jens tilted his head as if in contemplation, “Or maybe you would have been too…” he let the word linger, “ _impatient._ ” Leamas did not know how to use his voice. He knew what Jens was doing but he was so _drawn_ to him. He felt intoxicated, cold, the images flashing brilliantly behind his eyes. “You would have had me on my back, Alec _,_ ” it was breathless, the way his name rolled off that tongue, “your hands on my hips, my fingers _curled_ into your shoulders.”

Leamas barely saw Jens’ left-hand move, until fingernails brushed so gently along his jaw. He craved so desperately to lean into the touch. “Can’t you imagine?” He was. He _was_. “One hand would run up my waist, one hand down to my thigh.” Leamas could feel something stirring deep in his belly. He could not fight it. Jens’ voice lowered, heavy with implication. “You would have started so _gentle,_ but the feel-” his cold fingers pressed against Leamas’ cheek, “of me so tight around you, my lips on your neck, my fingers threaded through your hair, your name on my _tongue_ …” Leamas reminded himself to breathe. “It would have been too much.”

Leamas did not realise he had leaned in so close. The warmth of Jens’ bare skin against his fingertips suddenly felt overwhelming. “You would have made love to me all night, Alec.” His voice grew urgent. He was close enough to kiss. “All night, comfortable in the space between my legs, Alec. You would have lost yourself -  left your own finger-shaped bruises around my hips, between my thighs. _The taste of me on your-”_

“ _Enough!_ ”

Jens’ smile stilled and faded, but his laughter quickly filled the tense space. It was eerie, dark, _terrible_. It was so harmonic Leamas could have suffocated in its superficiality. He could barely breathe.

“Enough.” Smiley repeated. Leamas never recalled hearing so much anger in his voice. “Enough Jens.”

The boy leaned back, and Leamas came to.

Like waking from the throes of a tragic dream, he came to. The desire bubbling in the pit of his belly began to recede, replaced with a visceral sickness. He moved back quickly, releasing Jens as if the touch of his fingers burned him.

“You-” his voice broke.

Jens continued to laugh. Leamas could taste bile on his tongue. “How _easy-_ ” there were tears in his eyes, whether from pain or amusement Leamas could not tell. “Did you see, Mister Smiley?” The boy turned excitedly, and Leamas could breathe again. Jens wiped at his eyes with the back of his left hand, careful not to jar his wrist. “Did you see?”

He found it hilarious. He found making Leamas come undone _entertaining._ He had taken him apart so easily, so – so –

“ _Jens_ ,” Smiley sounded like he was berating a child. The sick feeling did not go away. “Jens, please. Stop.”

“But it was so _easy_ , Mister Smiley-”

Leamas felt decentred, unbalanced. He forced himself to _breathe_ but just the look of Jens’ twisted smile caused an unfamiliar fury to bubble in his chest. In that moment, he wanted so _desperately_ to hurt him, to smother the cruel laughter. His heart was quivering between his ribs. He faintly heard Smiley’s cry in the background as he lunged forward, his fingers wrapping viciously around Jens’ broken wrist.

The boy gasped, his eyes shutting reflexively against the pain. He tried to yank his wrist from Leamas’ grip, but his fingers were clasped around the fragile skin like an iron chain. He could feel the bones shifting beneath his fingers, hear the agonised cry quieten like Jens couldn’t draw in a breath. His face paled tremendously, like no blood thrummed in his veins.

“-lec- Alec! _Alec – stop!_ ”

It was Smiley’s anguished call, his fingers curled painfully around Leamas’ upper arms, that snapped him out of it.

He released the boy’s wrist immediately. Jens was trembling from the agony, his eyes clouded.

“Jens-” the boy shifted, his body bending in on itself as he turned away from them and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the carpet. Smiley was at his side in an instant.

Leamas could not understand what he had just done. _How?_ He could not justify the loss of control, the fury, the _desire._ He stumbled from the bed as Smiley helped Jens sit up, still shaking.

Leamas felt numb. Jens took a moment to regain his breath and he looked up at Leamas from beneath those dark eyelashes, and Leamas knew he would never forget the smile that followed. Was that even a smile?

_How could someone so young be so cruel?_

“Do you expect me to be impressed, Mister Smiley?” His voice was hoarse. Smiley shifted uncomfortably on his feet. Leamas had never seen him so uncertain.

“Why are you doing this?” Exhaustion permeated every word. “We just want to _help_ you, Jens.”

Leamas had never seen such a shift. It was incredible. One moment, Jens was breathing through the agony of his shifting bones, the next his eyes were fathomless, his lips pressed into a fine line. His shoulders were straight, his hands still. It was as if the past few moments had never happened.

“Help me?” It was quiet. Leamas could see now, more than ever, the intensity Smiley had spoken off, the _Control_ inside the teenager. It was deeply unsettling. “You think you can help _me_?” His voice did not rise, but his words were sharper.

“Jens-”

“You’re pathetic.”

Smiley froze. Leamas had to glance away from the heartbroken look in his eyes. He wanted so desperately to leave.

“Do you even realise what you’ve done?” Jens words were quieter. “What you’re doing?”

“I’m helping you,” Leamas could not speak for the conviction in his friend’s voice, “ _We’re_ helping you.”

Jens shook his head slowly. His eyes flashed from Smiley to Leamas and back. “You’re British Imperialist Officers and you’re trying to help _me_?” The air was so heavy Leamas could have cut through it with a butter knife. “I killed your defector. I’m an Agent of the GDR and you want to help _me_?”

He stood carefully. Smiley inched towards him but stopped himself short. “This isn’t about _politics_ , Jens-”

“Of course it is! You’re blind, Mister Smiley, if you think this isn’t about-”

“It’s _not._ It’s not about Communism or Capitalism or this bloody battle of ideological superiority. It _isn’t._ ”

“Is it because I – I engage your paternal instincts?”

“No, _Jens-_ ”

“Then how can you be so _naive_?”

“It’s called being human!”

In all the years he had known him, Leamas had never heard Smiley yell.

It seems Jens hadn’t either. It was almost imperceptible, his flinch. It told Leamas everything.

“You think you _know_ everything, Jens?” The boy did not reply. He did not look capable. “You think you _know_ what it’s like to feel blood on your hands because you stabbed a man in self-defence?”

Jens was about to interrupt but Smiley would not let him. “You’re a _child_ , you’re seventeen!” _Seventeen. Oh._ “You’re hurting, I know – but selling your soul to the Zone isn’t going to change anything! It won’t make you whole!”

“ _What am I supposed to do?_ ”

The silence was suffocating, sour. Jens suddenly sounded so splintered, so _young_ , like his fingers bled when he tried to piece his composure together.

“What am I supposed to do?” He repeated, and his voice broke, and Leamas could see the mask cracking. Pieces of Jens began to crumble and the boy tried so desperately to pull himself back together. Leamas couldn’t even tell if it was an act, but it was shattering to witness.

“Let me help.” Smiley was so gentle.

Jens shook his head, pushing his fingers against his temple. “You’re a Capitalist, you-”

“I’m your friend.”

“You’re not-”

“I am.” He was adamant. “I know you Jens. I know the clever little boy who watched his parents die and didn’t shed a tear because he didn’t want to frighten his sister. I know-”

“Stop-”

“The little boy who poured her tea and called her _madam_ and I know-”

“ _Stop_ -” He was begging. Jens was begging.

“The little boy who tried so hard to keep her safe and broke when she-”

“ _Stop!”_

Smiley did.

No one spoke. For a while, the silence was deafening.

“Everything you ever did, you did for the people you loved, Jens. Mundt-” Leamas’ head snapped up, “he’s not who you think he is. You can’t trust him.”

“Mundt is,” Jens paused, searching desperately for the right word, “he’s right, Mister Smiley.” The sincerity could not be faked. “He was right about me. He understands.”

“He’s manipulating you.”

“You think I don’t know?”

Leamas really wanted to go back to London. He felt so old. “Jens,” the name sounded uncomfortable on his own tongue. “Listen to him.”

The boy’s shoulders stooped. Every part of him seemed to deflate simultaneously, until he became so small. _God, he didn’t even look seventeen_. “I was walking in Berlin. Weeks ago. In the dark.” Leamas could feel Smiley’s tension radiating off him in waves. “I was careless. I…” he hesitated, looking away from them. He was ashamed. “There was a stranger, in the alleyway. He…”

Smiley’s hand came to his mouth. “Jens, Jens what happened?”

“Not – not that. But it was so close.” He finally looked up, and the conviction in his gaze was absolutely frightening. “I could feel the concrete pressed up against my cheek. I could feel him undoing my buttons.” Leamas did not want to listen. He could have begged him to stop. “No one could hear me. I tried fighting but-” he swallowed, “I went somewhere else. For a moment,” he waved to his temple gently. “You were there Mister Smiley.”

Smiley looked about to collapse. His hands were fisted by his sides.

“You and Christa. We were drinking tea,” Jens’ voice faded for a moment, and Leamas resisted the urge to collect him in his arms. “I told myself to pretend. Pretend and it would be over.”

“Jens…”

“He would have done it, gone all the way. But he came – Mundt came and he saved me.”

_God._

“He said I was weak. Pathetic. And it’s true. If I couldn’t even protect myself Mister Smiley, how was I supposed to protect Christa?” Jens’ eyes were dry. Smiley’s were not. “That’s when I knew, Mister Smiley. That’s why you can’t help me.”

“ _I can try_.”

Jens smiled sadly at Smiley. “Go back to your side of the war, Mister Smiley.” His friend looked so pained, like he had heard those words before. “Go back to London. MI5. I have one thing left to live for and it is the Party. Please don’t take that away from me.”

In that moment, the whole ghastly trick seemed to come to light.

Jens had done it. Leamas had never known Smiley to give up on anything.

And yet.

His friend looked so weary, like his very bones weighed him down. Leamas could not imagine the anguish that must have permeated his entire being. He could see how brilliantly Jens used his words: he had asked something of Smiley. Leamas did not think he had ever asked for anything before. How could Smiley say no?

Indeed, Leamas thought, the game had definitely outgrown them.

Smiley shifted, ever so slightly, so his back was not directly facing the door. Jens heard Smiley’s unsaid response. “Are you sure?”

Smiley raised an eyebrow. He didn’t speak. Leamas did not think he could.

“You’re just going to let me leave? Knowing what I’m going to do. What I’m going to become.”

There was something jarring about his words. The boy was brilliant, ruthless. He was ready to bury his humanity so far from the light to achieve his goals. His emotions would not inconvenience him. He would be devastating.

And yet, Leamas could not imagine an outcome where Smiley did not let Jens go.

Smiley did not speak. Jens limped forward. He did not fall.

He glanced at Leamas, and there was something deeply haunting in his gaze. He stared with such frightening intensity, like in that moment Leamas was all he could see. All that mattered.

And then it was over.

He looked at Smiley a final time. “London bridge has fallen down.”

Leamas did not understand. Smiley’s lips quirked upwards in a slow, sad smile.

It was a long time before he saw Jens Fiedler again.

*

They sat side by side on the floor of Leamas’ apartment, a bottle of scotch between them.

The clean-up job had been done in complete silence. The tension had been pervasive, confining, but neither agent felt the need to shatter it.

“George.” Leamas’ voice was hoarse, unused. He must have aged ten years in the past few hours alone. He felt his friend shift, turning to face him. Leamas let his head fall back against the couch. “George. You’re one of my oldest friends. I trust you with my life. But never, never ask me to do anything like that again.”

Smiley was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry. What I made you do…”

He shook his head. “You didn’t _make_ me do anything George. But what we did… We can’t do it again, you see that don’t you?”

“I know. It was reckless.”

“He’s in the Abtielung George. It was a little more than reckless.”

His friend drew the bottle to his lips and took a long sip. Leamas would have been concerned if he didn’t know how badly it was needed.

He sighed, and the words came tumbling from his lips. He felt too drunk and tired and old. God, he was sick of Berlin. “He played us, you know.” He didn’t wait for Smiley to comment. “All that nonsense in the end. About the Party. He knew asking you for something was the only way you’d let him go.”

Silence.

“You must have noticed, surely? All of that and he didn’t say a single thing, not really. He only conceited Mundt’s involvement because you brought it up.” Smiley _hmmd._ “He was there long enough for us to clean up his mess, fix up his hand. He could have thrown you in the loop with that party trick earlier. He didn’t.”

“He wanted to make sure Alexei was taken care of.”

“Clever boy.”

“Devastating.”

Leamas twisted his head and looked at Smiley. His friend still focused ahead, on some invisible space. Leamas knew what he was seeing. He remembered how easily Jens had played him – a twitch of his lips, the rising tension in his voice, the warmth of his skin, the thought of that slender figure pressed up against him. _My lips on your neck, my fingers threaded through your hair._ In that moment, he would have given Jens anything he desired. The boy could have teased it right out of him. He would have surrendered anything for a _touch._ He could not understand how he had fallen so easily. _He was seventeen._ It frightened him.

“Yes, he is.”

“I’ve never seen so many masks. It was like he could be anything, anyone, in a moment.”

“He could have been.”

“We shouldn’t have let him go.”

“No, we shouldn’t have.”

A pause.

“George.” Leamas grabbed the bottle from Smiley’s hand, his fingers curling around the long glass neck. “Did we commit treason?”

He took a sip. Smiley made a noise of contemplation at the back of his throat. “I think so Alec.”

He passed the bottle back. “You need to go home, George.” There was no argument. Leamas stared a hole through the ugly wallpaper peeling off colourless concrete. “You need to leave Germany. Don’t come back.”

“I know.”

He continued unnecessarily. He knew Smiley knew. But the words needed to be said, no matter how terrible they were. “The next time I see him, George, I have to do it. End it.” Smiley said nothing. “If you stay, you’re going to look for him. And he’s going to play you. You can’t do it. If you can’t shoot him down, George, you can’t be here.”

The scotch disappeared too quickly, warming Leamas’ tongue as quickly as the early morning sun began to rise.

“Can you?”

Leamas hesitated. He thought about how pretty that laugh was. How he’d been spun around a slender finger. “I have to. You can’t be here.”

“I know Alec. I know.”

He turned, glancing at his old friend. “What’re you thinking?” Smiley lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve that look. Where your forehead goes all wrinkly. You’re figuring something out. Share with the class?”

The pause seemed heavier this time. “Something Jens said. About Mundt.” Leamas waited. “About the alleyway.”

Leamas did not want to remember that particular confession. Even if Jens had used it to emotionally compromise them, there was too much truth in it. “What about it?”

“He said _Mundt saved me. Mundt was right._ Mundt. Mundt. Mundt.”

The idea was so terrible it collected with shocking clarity in Leamas’ alcohol-addled brain. “You think he purposefully-”

“It couldn’t have been a coincidence, could it? All of Berlin, and he happens to be in _that_ alleyway at _that_ time? It just doesn’t make enough sense.”

“Jens must know.”

“He does. It’s why he used the story as ammunition. Because he knew all the factors.”

“So what are you thinking then? There’s something else, George. I see it in your eyes.”

“Mundt set up that fiasco to push Jens over the edge. He must have watched him for such a long time. But Jens – he would never have come so close if it weren’t for…”

“Oh.” _Oh._ “You think he-?”

“Why else would she have been there that night? Why else did those boys choose to harass Jens _that night_? Why-”

The sick feeling was back. Leamas really did hate Berlin. “She was a child.”

“She was in the way.”

Leamas stood abruptly, the vertigo hitting him between the eyes. He stumbled to the wooden table, legs numb and shaking. A sudden restlessness seemed to come upon him. “So it’s all part of Mundt’s _great scheme_?”

Smiley nodded. “Jens is invaluable. He lived for two things: the Party and his sister. Christa always took priority. She was the last of his-” _Family? Humanity? Peace?_ Leamas could only wonder.

He asked what Smiley did not want him to. He flattened his palms against the tabletop, purposeless. He did not remember why he stood in the first place. “Do you think he knows?”

Smiley shook his head. “No. There’s no way.”

His friend was hardly the best judge of character at this point, but Leamas was inclined to take his word for it. He dropped into a rickety chair.

The sun began to rise over the horizon. The beeches outside would be spectacular on the turn.

“Give my love to Ann, will you?”

There was an all-consuming silence for a second, before Smiley began to laugh. There was nothing particularly funny about it, but Smiley laughed until his cheeks reddened and the air was sucked from his lungs. Until his eyes were filled with tears and he pressed a palm against his mouth.

Indeed. There was nothing particularly funny about it, and that was the joke.


	4. by a rocking cradle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh what a terrible feeling it was, Smiley thought, to outlive one’s own children.
> 
> This is the end, and he has never felt it more acutely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> f i n a l l y
> 
> post-canon  
> this has been sitting on my laptop a long time

Smiley liked to think he was not a particularly bitter man. It wasn’t bitterness he felt the first time he found someone else warming Ann’s bed, nor the second, nor the third. Not when Prideaux and Esterhase kept quiet about Hayden. Not when Control fed him all the lies and half-truths and smiled that terrible snake smile when he left to fight a war that wasn’t theirs. Not when their sinister plan crumbled around them like dry paint. Instead, it was a terrible sadness which permeated his very being, which filled his bones with grains of sand and settled uncomfortably in the space between his ribs. Those sleepless nights, the pointless days which seemed to stretch on forever, the weariness he heard in the creaking of his old heart. It wasn’t bitterness.

This was new and foreign and somehow so awfully familiar. It seemed to bubble in his chest and suspend the beats of his heart moments at a time, a large fist tight around his aorta.

This time it was him. It was after all, wasn’t it? All him.

He concocted the plan. He took part in its execution. He sentenced his friend to death.

Thinking about Alec made him dizzy. He’d lost men before. Soldiers. Friends. Family. But Alec was – he trusted Alec. Maybe that’s why it hurt so much.

Alec was the last person on either side of that bloody curtain he trusted with something so much more important than his life.

He was familiar with this part: the grieving process. He was unfamiliar with the gut-wrenching guilt that threatened to unravel the muscles candy-wrapped around his joints and send him to his knees.

He pushed a hand against his temple, eyes dry. A heavy hand settled on his shoulder. George turned, uncomfortable at the concern in Peter’s eyes.

“You sure you’re okay to do this, George?”

He nodded. It had to be him.

They walked through the bleak corridors, the _click-clack_ of heels filling up the silence. The grey walls seemed to devour the ceilings, the sharp edges mollified by the shadows.

“What are you going to say to him?”

The question hanged between them. Stale. Smiley felt so incredibly resigned in that moment.

“I don’t know.”

Guillam didn’t reply. They reached the door, and Smiley just stood.

The brass knob glistened in the poor light, calling out to him. But his hand would not move, his fingers taut and suddenly so cold. Dread shackled his ankles to the linoleum floor.

And then Guillam leaned in and wrapped his long fingers around the knob, shooting Smiley a sympathetic look.

“Sure you don’t want me to come with?”

Smiley snapped himself out of the frightening reverie. He cleared his throat. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”

He let Guillam open the door for him and stepped across the threshold.

The young man sat on the other side of the metal table, back straight, shoulders perfectly uniform. The still, naked bulb hanging from the ceiling fractured the delicate lines of his face with a mosaic of shadows, stark against his cotton coloured face. His cheekbones might have cut through his skin, the hollows of his eyes framing his gaze in a pastiche of violet and blue. His hair was not at all sleek, locks curling across his forehead and the shell of one ear. The prison uniform dwarfed him, the fabric hanging so loosely off his thin body both collarbones were exposed, the veins from his neck like a map drawn right down to the curve of one desperately white shoulder. Smiley could barely breathe.

He stared, for a long moment. His nerves began to fray, and as Jens tilted his head towards him, the loose thread holding his composure together came undone.

Smiley’s breath was caught somewhere in his throat. From here, he could see the press of Jens’ feet together, aligned with his palms flat against the tabletop. Heavy cuffs encircled skeletal wrists, and chains shackled his ankles to the legs of the table. _Are you made of glass?_

It was a short while before Smiley could make himself move. He felt old, tired and small. He feet seemed to drag behind him, his hands pressed against the fabric of trousers, slick with sweat.

He avoided those painfully familiar eyes as he drew the chair opposite Jens and sat down heavily.

Neither spoke. The square room was suddenly so confining, suffocating the courage before it reached his lungs. Smiley tilted his head, and looked into the face a boy he loved, lost, and would mourn.

“Mister Smiley.”

His mouth was dry. All his words seemed to wither on his tongue.

Jens smiled, and for the briefest second, Smiley could pretend his heart had not been viciously torn from his chest.

“Thank you. I should thank you, yes?”

Laughter bubbled at the base of his throat, the terribly hilarity all-consuming. The joke was not lost on him.

“You don’t have to.”

Jens held his gaze, and Smiley looked into the troubled eyes of a lonely little boy with a fractured childhood. He was back in that anteroom, with a Jens who had just lost his parents, and held his sister like she was the most precious gem.

Smiley pulled a key from his pocket and leaned forward, his hands so incredibly gentle as he unlocked the handcuffs from those fragile wrists, careful not to irritate the bruised and bloodied skin beneath.

They clattered loudly against the table as he pushed them aside. Jens glanced at his wrists, but did not move, keeping them still as if he were still chained. Smiley blinked and saw Karla. He blinked again and saw a lifetime of regret.

 _Calm, George._ He was slow as he pulled a half-empty pack of Navy Stripes from his coat, offering one to Jens.

The young man looked at the cigarettes for a second which seemed to last longer than forever. Something in his gaze dimmed, a distant light flashing too weakly to be caught by the passing ships. Smiley knew exactly why.

He drew one from the packet and held it carefully between his teeth. Smiley did the same and lit both in silence.

Jens’ eyelids fluttered shut momentarily, inhaling the breath of a dying man.  They breathed in the stale air together, a moment of silence for a friend they had both lost.

“He hated these y’know.” Smiley motioned almost lazily with one hand. “But it was all we had during the war.”

Jens’ smile became smaller, real, as if trapped in some sweet memory. “I think he grew to enjoy them, after a while.” He “I think he insisted on smoking them all the time because he knew I despised them so much.”

Smiley snorted. “Sounds like him.” _Sounded._ Jens caught the slip up, and Smiley cleared his throat. He licked his lips and pulled the cigarette between his fingers. “Did you-” he hesitated. Jens raised one eyebrow, looking at Smiley as if he were not the executioner tying a noose around his slender neck. “Did you know how he felt?”

He hated himself for asking but he could not regret it. Jens drew in another breath of tobacco and blew the curls of smoke away from Smiley’s face. He didn’t answer for a long moment.

“I denied it for a long time, Mister Smiley. I didn’t understand how he could possibly-” his paused, and the fingers of his unoccupied hand curled.

“He loved you.”

It shattered Smiley to say it and it shattered Jens to hear it. The young man seemed to curl in on himself, overwhelmed by some inherent sadness. “I know.”

“Did you tell him?” Smiley was impelled by the need to know, to ascertain Alec’s torment before he – before his – “Did you tell him, Jens?”

The young man drummed three fingers silently across the metal table. He looked at the grey walls, his eyes flickering to the ceiling briefly. An unease grew in the pit of Smiley’s belly. Jens was nervous.

Smiley had never seen the boy nervous.

“I didn’t have to tell him.” There was something so lovely about the way he twisted his words. The unease began to recede. “He already knew.”

“I’m glad. He-” everything Smiley wanted to say felt so awfully inadequate. “he deserved that. So do you.”

“It was the first time I made love, Mister Smiley.” The younger man sounded so incredibly genuine his voice pulled at Smiley’s heartstrings. “It was the first time it was not a transaction.”

His fingers bled picking up the splinters of his heart. “I’m sorry.”

“Whatever for Mister Smiley?”

_How do you not understand?_

He could not swallow down his frustration. “Jens I-”

“Do you regret it?”

Smiley was taken aback. “Regret what?”

“Saving me,” Jens replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “All those years ago. Knowing what you know now.”

 _You do. You do understand._ Smiley put out his cigarette on the table. Jens was staring at him, undisturbed by the waning stub, as if unaware of the heat nearing the tips of his fingers. Of course. It was Control’s voice – it always was - Jens functioned as the catalyst for exceptional loss and instability in the Circus – Smiley could hardly forget all the men who shattered beneath his dangerous, gentle touch. The boy was a weapon. He was a threat that should have been eliminated before he flourished.

But Smiley had always been flawed in his compassion.

“Never,” there was a terrifying sincerity in his voice which seemed to take Jens by surprise. “I will never regret saving you.” There was a sudden anguish in those brilliant eyes. “You told me once that I loved the wrong people. That was one of the few times you were wrong.”

"Jens leaned back, the cigarette put out. “Mister Smiley-”

“I don’t love the wrong people Jens.” _I love you. I loved Christa._

The German seemed to understand. His smile faded, the lines of his face softening, as he were grappling with the possibility of some grand peace. His palms were flat against the table again, the fine bones and thin fingers brittle. He looked so painfully young.

“Do you know why I sang London Bridge that night, Mister Smiley?”

Smiley leaned back, forcing the jittering of his leg to slow. _Calm._

“My mother used to sing it to me. It was about the depredation of the London Bridge, you see – and all the efforts of the Englishmen to repair it.” Smiley raised an eyebrow, but he said nothing. “It was falling apart – Mister Smiley – the bridge. Cracking, trembling chaotically above the water. And they just wanted to put it back together – to stabilise the destabilised, to centre the decentred.”

He smiled quietly to himself, and Smiley could see the little boy in those lovely moments. “Do you remember how it ends, Mister Smiley?”

“Give him a pipe to smoke all night, My fair lady.”

“Right,” Jens nodded with renewed certainty – as if Smiley should have understood. “Set a man to watch all night. Don’t you see Mister Smiley? The bridge was always doomed to fall. It was a critique,” he sounded passionately satisfied, “of our innate human desperation.”

“Oh Jens.”

It came together so slowly. It came together like it should have when Smiley left Control’s home all that time ago, when he drove back to his little house, missing his little wife, in his little car. It came together like it should have when everything seemed so incredibly insignificant, when the rain pelted his windshield with such fervour he could scarcely see through the glass.

The boy didn’t reply.

The handcuffs glistened at the end of the table. The distant lights seemed invariably brighter now. “Even if something is so beyond repair, we are still inclined to fix it.”

It came together, a pretty image sewn with an old, fraying thread. “Impelled by some terrible need to make it whole again.”

Jens nodded. “You understand, Mister Smiley. But I think you have always understood.” There was an incredible sadness which seemed to curl those delicate fingers. “I think you understood when you knelt in front of me and asked for my name in 1941. I also said you were not meant for war, Mister Smiley. But I was not wrong about that.” A small smile trembled on his lips as his eyes focused on a time far past. Smiley was entranced.

He could not disagree. “You weren’t wrong, Jens. But there are some things we have to do – no matter how terrible, no matter how hopeless they may seem.”

“Rebuilding the bridge.”

He nodded. “Rebuilding the bridge.”

Jens inhaled a quiet breath. “Do you miss her, Mister Smiley?”

He felt cold. _Do you miss her?_

“Always,” he said.

 _I regret her,_ he did not say.

Jens shifted in the metal chair. Smiley itched to wrap him in a blanket, to take him far away. Jens was no longer the little lost boy who attended Smiley’s lectures at Bonn – who gazed in wonder as he explained the necessity of the free market. His amazement was never the result of the internal workings of Capitalist functions – it was the result of his realisation that someone could attempt to justify such an _inherently corrupt system_ , _Mister Smiley._ This boy – this wasn’t him.

This Jens – the Jens sat before him, wrists raw and bloodied from the shackles, a skeletal imitation, was one of the most devastating weapons used against the circus. Born from Smiley’s desire to glue together the fractured pieces of a traumatised mind.

All the death, the loss, which came about from the an unsound battle for political superiority – it might have been hindered, mitigated, had this Jens never existed.

_Alec, you might still be here._

And yet.

“Mister Smiley,” Jens threaded a thin hand through his hair. Smiley felt a little bit more shallow. “They are going to execute me.”

His words ate up the silence, leaving behind a dangerous thrill of numbness. Jens sounded so devastatingly accepting. As if he had summed his entire future in six, meaningless words. _They are going to execute me._

Oh what a terrible feeling it was, Smiley thought, to outlive one’s own children.

“Yes.” _Yes. They are._ What more could he say? There was no place for empty platitudes here.

“I’d like to…” Jens licked his lips. He looked uncertain, eyes suddenly everywhere but Smiley’s face.

“Jens?” Smiley leaned forward. The edge of the metal table was hard against his torso.

“I’d like to ask you something, Mister Smiley.”

For a brief moment, Smiley recalled Alec’s words from that day: _He knew asking you for something was the only way you’d let him go._

_Are you asking me to let you go, Jens Fiedler?_

“Anything.”

“Forgive yourself.”

_Yes. Yes you are._

“Forgive yourself for me, Mister Smiley.”

“…How?”

Jens smiled, and it might have been the most precious moment Smiley could savour.

“Stop trying to rebuild the bridge.”

Tears came to his eyes quickly, suddenly, with such a force the breath left his body in a magnificent flood. And then he was on the other side of the metal table, and his hands were fisted tight around those thin shoulder blades, and in his arms George Smiley held his greatest accomplishment and his greatest regret.

*

“They haven’t given him a grave. I don’t even know where he’ll be buried.” The mud stuck to his boots obnoxiously. Smiley let his heels sink. “I’ve been trying to negotiate something with Control. I don’t want them to keep him in Berlin.” He paused. “Is that selfish of me, old friend?”

The grave glistened, but did not reply.

Smiley sighed. “I’d like him here, ideally. Next to you. You’d like that wouldn’t you? It’d be bloody ironic.”

Grey puffs were pinned up in the sky today. Rain had washed the graveyard afresh, and the smell of petrichor hid in the nooks between carved marble edges and wet dirt.

“Mmm.” Smiley lit his cigarette. “Maybe you wouldn’t much care. He wouldn’t. He’d say something existential. _Death is the ultimate equaliser, Mister Smiley._ ” He nodded to himself. “It would be very profound, a little cliché, and that’d be the punchline. He’d tell me to stop trying to rebuild that bloody bridge too.”

Tobacco filled his lungs. He should have brought a glass of scotch for a toast.

“But I can’t, you see. I was going to, but I can’t. You don’t stop trying to rebuild the bridges with the people you love, no matter how goddamn futile it is.” _No matter how dead they are._ Smiley could have laughed. “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you Alec?”

His friend slept on, six feet beneath him.

Smiley was quiet for a moment.

“I have to go.” He pulled the Stripe from between his lips. “But I’ll come back. I’ll bring Peter too.”

Smiley could barely hear the _squelch_ of his boots. A wild noise cracked through the sky. It looked like another fervent rain.

In a way, this was always how it was going to end. He had pointed the gun, but he couldn’t make himself pull the trigger.

He glanced over his shoulder. Alec’s grave was a little white dot in the distance.

_There’s always someone else to pull the trigger, isn’t there?_

Smiley put out his cigarette with the heel of his shoe, and kept walking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> after 28829489 years of writing fanfiction, let's celebrating ending my first multi-chapter fic e v e r


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